The actor spent almost a decade fighting monsters \u2013 and making friends \u2013 on the hit Netflix show. Then, last year, it all came to an end. How\u2019s he adjusting?<\/p>\n
Finn Wolfhard is remembering his first experience of celebrity. It was 2016 and he was 13. The first season of Stranger Things had aired that summer, and he returned to his high school in Vancouver as if nothing had changed. But things had changed. \u201cPeople didn\u2019t know how to treat me, especially the teachers. Kids that didn\u2019t even look at me before were paying attention to me or wanting to hang out.\u201d He remembers a girl in the year above who really wanted a photo with him. \u201cAnd I was like: \u2018Oh, I can\u2019t really take photos at school.\u2019 And she wasn\u2019t listening to me and pulled me into, like, a side hug. I remember thinking: \u2018Shit, man. I have no control over this. This seems crazy.\u2019 So, it was definitely weird at first, and something I still haven\u2019t totally grasped.\u201d<\/p>\n
How strange it must be to have spent such a large part of your life playing a character that half the world knows, and has watched grow up on screen, turning from a wide-eyed, gawky, nerdy kid to a sharp-cheekboned (but still quite gawky) action hero. Nobody could have predicted how huge Stranger Things would become or how long it would last, fuelled by popular demand, then stalled by the pandemic. It concluded a decade later, at the end of last year, having reached the point where it was no longer sustainable for twentysomethings like Wolfhard to pass as high schoolers.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/c806ad52ac57854ff929c4e4609240f7a6387c74\/273_0_4214_3369\/master\/4214.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=c47772e93a454438a2522728b5f75c7b\" "\\"\u2018It")
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