Stranger Things stunt boss reveals which cast member is keenest to do stunts

Stranger Things has seen plenty of memorable fight scenes over the years, whether it’s from the kids going up against the Demogorgon, or when they’re fighting each other. Each fight comes with its own unique style that presents a new trial to stunt co-ordinator Hiro Koda.

Hiro is no stranger to working on stunts. In fact, aside from Stranger Things, he’s worked on some highly-coveted TV shows over the years, including Big Little Lies, Ozark, and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Beyond that, he has also worked as the stunt double for Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. In other words, if you need a stunt performer, Hiro Koda is your guy!

Speaking to Metro.co.uk, Hiro revealed which cast members of the Netflix sci-fi were most keen do perform their own stunts. Firstly, he points out Dacre Montgomery (Billy Hargrove) as a stand-out performer who was “always” pushing for more stunts. Billy’s role in the show really took off in season 3, which portrayed him as the main villain, even though he had been taken over by the Mind Flayer.

"“Everybody was gung ho to get into the stunts and do certain things,” he said. “Billy (Dacre Montgomery) is one who for sure always pushed me like, ‘Hey man, I can do this. I can do this.’ He was great. It was fun.”"

Another actor Hiro pointed out as a quick-learner to the art of stunts was David Harbour (Hopper):

"“Hopper, Dave Harbour, is incredible, is awesome and he’s super agile and he learns all his choreography super quick and very safe with the fights and things like that. And he is a very strong man, he’s a very big man!”"

And finally, as for Joe Keery (Steve Harrington), well, he’s another athletic actor who was keen to do his own stunts. “He’s super agile. Very athletic. I love Joe. He’s amazing. He’s an incredible human, outside of work, he’s just an awesome guy.”

So, of course, to answer the question of who was the keenest to perform their own stunts, it has to be the trio of Dacre Montgomery, David Harbour, and Joe Keery. No single winners this time. However, it has to be taken into account that no two fight scenes are the same. Some might have complex moves while others might use various props. Add to that how each character has their own unique style and you have a very difficult question to answer, as Hiro explains:

"“And that’s the interesting thing about working with them. Doing all the different fights because everybody’s character is so different…Like you have to choreograph to that actor, and what their character is, if that makes sense because, you know, Joe’s character fights completely different from the way Hopper fights and the way Grigori (Andrey Ivchenko) fights, like we create these styles for them, and we want to stick to how they are when they’re doing their fights and their action.”"

Both Joe Keery and David Harbour are set to return for season 4. Unfortunately, Dacre Montgomery most likely won’t return after his character Billy was killed in the season 3 finale. But this is Stranger Things after all, who’s to say he won’t return? Hopper is coming back after being killed off, so who knows?

While we’re on the topic of behind-the-scenes Stranger Things news, you should go ahead and watch this video of the cast take us on a tour of the set. But be warned, seeing them all together again makes the wait for season four that much more painful:

Stranger Things season 4 is currently looking to restart production as soon as possible after being shut down by the coronavirus. In the meantime, you can catch up on seasons 1-3, which are now streaming on Netflix.

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