Over the course of four seasons, Stranger Things has delivered audiences all manner of compelling sequences, whether they be emotionally gripping or physically intense, but according to star Sadie Sink, the hardest scene she’s had to shoot in her time on the franchise was complicated due to technical restrictions. The scene in question saw Sink’s Max having an emotional scene with Dacre Montgomery’s Billy, but due to COVID protocols, he filmed his scene across the globe in Australia and the two performers were then seamlessly edited together. Stranger Things Season 4 – Volume 2 will be landing on Netflix on July 1st.
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“That was definitely the most challenging [scene] I think I’ve ever had to do on Stranger Things, just because so much of Max and Billy’s relationship comes from the onscreen chemistry that me and Dacre have,” Sink shared with The Hollywood Reporter. “Being used to working with him and reading with him for two seasons now, and then having to do a really important scene with him but not have him there, was definitely very tricky. I definitely did get a little frustrated when I was on set, but I think I kind of channeled it into the scene as much as I could and ended up getting, I think, a pretty good result — and obviously, the visual effects team really stepped in and made it look as realistic as possible.”
On the other end of the spectrum, Sink shared some unsettling and intense encounters with the Season 4 villain Vecna, played by Jamie Campbell Bower. Making that entire process much easier was how convincingly the makeup and disfiguring prosthetics made the actor resemble the treacherous figure.
“Well, I think two things come into play when it comes to the believability of Vecna. The first just being the prosthetics and having it be mostly practical effects was really helpful,” Sink recalled of shooting those scenes. “We’re so used to working with stunt guys and stunt-women in green bodies and tennis balls in their hands, or something like that, so having Jamie actually there was very helpful because he was genuinely just horrifying. It’s just not normal what you’re looking at, so you’re kind of tricking your mind in a way, and it makes stepping into Max’s shoes that much easier.”
She continued, “But also, I think the biggest part is that you can put anyone in that costume and they can be scary, but with Jamie, he was so in it all the time, not only when the cameras were rolling. He liked to kind of stay in character a lot, and there would be times and longer setups and stuff where he would filter in and out of it, but for a lot of the Mind Lair stuff, there was not a lot of talking going on between us. It was mostly just him as Vecna, standing in the corner and like growling or something like that, and he was just very, very, in it. And he would kind of talk in that voice a lot. So, to have someone as committed as Jamie in a role like that, just made it really believable. I think that was probably the key.”
Stranger Things Season 4 – Volume 2 will be landing on Netflix on July 1st.
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