The cast of Stranger Things 2: a sci-fi hat-trick

Taken from the winter issue of Dazed. You can buy a copy of our latest issue here. 

What’s new in the 1980s? Seen here in Rag and Bone’s Resort 2018 collection and heritage denim, we meet Stranger Things 2’s Noah Schnapp along with the show’s new faces Sadie Sink and Linnea Berthelsen — three young stars who dragged us back into the Upside Down in 2017.

SADIE SINK

For Sadie Sink, the most daunting part of joining Stranger Things was learning to skateboard. “It was, like, three hours of lessons every day for a month,” she recalls. “I fell on the first day – I was skating up a hill and I managed to fall!” In Stranger Things 2, the auburn-locked 15-year-old plays Max, the Californian “tomboy skater girl” and mysterious new addition to the gang. For most young actresses, joining a global phenomenon would have been a scary prospect, but for Sink, it was all in a day’s work – she appeared on stage as a child before taking a small but explosive part in cold-war drama The Americans. “I was just this little girl who’d played Annie on Broadway who was gonna hold a gun on TV,” she laughs. On Stranger Things 2, the tight-knit nature of the cast meant she made new friends in the process. “I consider everyone family on-set. I treat all the boys like I’d treat my brothers – and Millie (Bobby Brown) is like a sister. I think she was glad to have another girl on the show, finally. ’Cos the boys are great but, you know…”

NOAH SCHNAPP

“Just imagine being alone in a separate dimension,” muses Noah Schnapp. “I mean, what happens to you?” It’s a question the 13-year-old actor spent a lot of time pondering in the runup to filming. Resuming the role of Will Byers, freshly rescued from the Upside Down, Schnapp was tasked with portraying a young man more courageous than your average teen. Naturally, his character being back in the real world meant more time on-set for him than the previous season as well. “It was very cool. When they sent us the scripts I’d be flipping through seeing what happens to my character and I’d be like, ‘Oh my God, what?!’” Suffice to say, if you were hoping to see Will enjoy a bit of the quiet life in Stranger Things 2, you’ll be watching the wrong show. “In real life, I don’t consider it scary, ’cos after they say cut, (the actor who) plays the demogorgon pulls off the mask and pulls out his phone,” he laughs. “But watching it back, it looks really scary. I’d sit there remembering the exact part of filming like, ‘and the scary part is gonna come in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Bang!’”

LINNEA BERTHELSEN

Linnea Berthelsen is new to this whole starring in an all-conquering sci-fi epic thing. Joining the cast as the troubled Kali – AKA Eight – the Danish actress’s contribution to Stranger Things 2 is one of the season’s most instantly memorable. It’s quite the achievement for someone in their first major role. Berthelsen, 24, remembers meeting her costars in less-than-ideal circumstances; she was halfway through getting her hair dyed for the part when Winona Ryder and Sean Astin entered the trailer unannounced. “I was like, ‘This is not the right time to meet Winona,” she says. “I thought, ‘Maybe if I sit like this, they’ll think I’m an extra…’ It didn’t work!” Overall, though, it was just a blip in a “really great” experience for Berthelsen. “The cast were very supportive. It was about trust. It was all very hectic and I’m new to all of this, but the directors and crew were really good at saying, ‘Linnea, you don’t need to stress. You’re gonna kill it!’” 

Stranger Things 2 is out now via Netflix

Hair for Linnea Jonathan DeFrancesco at LGA Management using Bumble and bumble., hair for Sadie and Noah Edward Lampley at Bryant Artists using Kérastase, make-up for Linnea Siobhan Furlong at LGA Management using M.A.C, make-up for Sadie and Noah Stevie Huynh at Bryant Artists using Make Up For Ever, photography assistants Joseph Reddy, Timothy Shin, John Spyrou, styling assistants Justin French and Juanjose Mouko Nsue, production Mini Title