To Become Eddie, Joseph Quinn Battled a 'Monster' Wig and His Love of Pizza
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The following story contains spoilers for Stranger Things 4, Volume 1.
Actor Joseph Quinn hails from England, but if you don't look up his background—and just watch his breakthrough performance as the ever-animated Eddie Munson in the first volume of Netflix's Stranger Things 4 you'd have absolutely no idea. On a mid-afternoon Zoom, however, the 29-year-old actor's transformation is utterly apparent; not only does he look different than how he does on screen, but he sounds different too—working hard with a dialect coach goes a long way. Well, that and an absolutely massive wig—a "monster" that initially took 40 minutes to even put on (before the Stranger Things team eventually got it down to 20).
"It does literally all the work for you," Quinn says just a day before the fourth season of Netflix's smash genre hit was set to debut. "When you’ve got that look that's so different from yourself… just shut up and let the wig talk, really!"
It can be hard for new characters to fit into hit shows—they're hits for a reason, right? Audiences like shows because the existing dynamics work. But it's also important to bring change, too, and Eddie—the ringleader of The Hellfire Club, Hawkins High's premiere Dungeons & Dragons society—is essential in establishing just how OG Stranger Things characters from Mike and Dustin to Steve and Nancy are evolving with the times. He's an intense character who some around him love, and some around him hate. And Quinn does a great job in making sure we care about Eddie even outside of the context of other storylines—and he anchors the season's first episode in a surprisingly affectionate way.
But it doesn't start that way. In his very first scene, Eddie comes on strong. In the school cafeteria, he's monologuing, making claims about how after many years, he's finally going to graduate high school, stomping on the tables, and picking fights.
Quinn didn't even recognize the person he saw on the Stranger Things set. "It's such a fun thing to look at yourself and not really see something similar to how you normally see yourself," he says. "It’s really funny to look at."
Funny is another word we can use to describe Eddie; with his young Brendan Fraser flare, Quinn doesn't feel like an English actor who once appeared as a Stark loyalist in Game of Thrones or a key player in a BBC series, but, well, an intense Dungeons & Dragons rocker guy from Indiana.
We talked with Quinn about just how how he turned into the wild, rambunctious, and surprisingly affectionate Eddie for Stranger Things 4.
Men's Health: Stranger Things is always paying tribute to the ‘80s. Was there any particular thing influencing your performance?
Joe Quinn: The satanic panic of the time was definitely at the spine of my character. But more than anything, I was just referencing people that I saw in the years above me at school.
As a millennial coming from England, what was your touchstone for ‘80s culture here in America?
The Breakfast Club. That’s the main one for me.
Now that you say that, I definitely see a bit of Judd Nelson in Eddie.
I may have been thinking of him slightly.
Maybe it’s the Doc Martens.
It’s got to be the boots.
What sort of preparation did you do for the role? Before the cameras were rolling, what were you doing to become Eddie?
There were two main differences: the fact that he was significantly younger than I was, and the fact that he was American. I also looked like any 26-year-old (at the time) man who likes pizza. So I stopped eating as much pizza, and I lost a bit of weight to try to roll back the years, and then I worked a lot with a dialect coach to try desperately to sound…like you.
I think part of what makes Eddie so compelling as a character is that we meet both sides of him in the first episode: the intense, weird, leader of The Hellfire Club, but also the sweetheart who spends some time with Chrissy the cheerleader. Was it hard to balance those two sides of the character?
I was aware that it had to be like that. He’s a pretty imposing force, and I felt like we had to see that in the beginning, but we also had to like him as well—because of what happens to him. We have to care and root for him. So in that scene with the brilliant Grace Van Dien, playing Chrissy, it was such a treat to explore those softer sides to him with her.
I want to ask about some of the special effects of the season too. Obviously the Eddie and Chrissy storyline ends with Chrissy’s arms and legs bending a million different directions and her eyeballs exploding. When you’re filming a scene like that, what are you seeing?
I’m seeing Grace very unelegantly suspended in the air in a harness, complaining. But then there was an amazing stunt where Chrissy’s character gets slapped up onto the ceiling. But there were no bones broken, or anything like that. It was very methodical, and it took a while. But the end result is terrifying, isn’t it?
Even knowing how it plays out, when you watch that scene back in finished form is it still just as creepy?
It’s just brilliantly directed, I think. It comes out of nowhere. You’re in the trailer with these two characters, and then something happens, and it happens so quickly, and then it’s the end of the episode. I think it’s such a statement for the rest of the season.
You also get to spend some time in the Upside Down. On a technical level: how much of that is CGI, and how much is practical? How do you film those sequences?
It’s a combination. There were a lot of practical tentacles everywhere, and there was a lot of blue screen as well. But then there’s stuff in the woods, real trees, they did their part. I remember that being pretty mad; we’d turn up to these woods and there were lights everywhere. It looked amazing, and you really felt the scale of it there. On other productions, they might have just lit up five or six trees and you’d have to walk in circles. But they just set up, I don’t know how many lights—it was mad.
What’s your first feeling when you see the effects, costume, and every other aspect of the final product of Stranger Things 4?
It’s pretty gratifying, I won’t lie. We’ve all been working really hard on it for a long time, and to see other people’s stuff as well, because it’s such a splintered season, with the three main storylines that run through it. To see what everyone else had been shooting was the most exciting, because we knew what we were up to every day, and it was great to see what was happening in California, and all the stuff that happened in the prison. It’s kind of just fun to see it all come together, and then surreal to see your fucking self pop up in it. It’s mad!
You were on Game of Thrones a few years ago, obviously another enormous show. I’m curious if your experience on that helped prep for Stranger Things.
In a way, it must have. I think they were completely different experiences. Game of Thrones was very much a kind of ‘turn up, do a couple of days, and leave,’ and this felt far more involved, and more invested, and more collaborative, and I got to know everyone better and way more. The only thing that’s comparative is the fact that they’ve got large fanbases, but they were very different experiences.
There’s going to be one more Stranger Things season after this one. Was there anything you haven’t gotten to do yet that you’re hoping will make its way in?
I’m really grafting for a Joyce and Eddie get-together. I would love to work with Winona. But we really don’t know what’s going to happen next season. We’ve heard whispers; I’m pretty excited with what I’ve heard.
I love how Stranger Things brings in all these people who played iconic characters in the ‘80s; you mentioned Winona, and then we’ve also got Paul Reiser from Aliens, Cary Elwes and Sean Astin have been in past seasons. Is there any ‘80s star that you’d like to work with, if you had your dream pick?
You’ve got to get Michael J. Fox in, surely. Any iconic ‘80s actor? Mickey Rourke would be pretty cool.
If you were to describe Eddie to someone who hasn’t watched the season, or maybe even doesn’t know about Stranger Things, how would you describe him?
Manic. Irritating. A kind of marmite. He probably hates it when you love him.
This interview has been condensed for content and clarity.
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