{"id":2219142,"date":"2026-01-01T19:54:45","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T19:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2219142"},"modified":"2026-01-01T19:54:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T19:54:45","slug":"welcome-to-derry-cameo-and-upcoming-film-crash-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/welcome-to-derry-cameo-and-upcoming-film-crash-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to Derry\u2019 Cameo, and Upcoming Film \u2018Crash Land\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cYou have to answer your email,\u201d Finn Wolfhard\u2019s father tells him. The young actor is home in Vancouver in 2017 for a break after filming I<\/em>T<\/em> and Stranger Things<\/a> <\/em>season 2 back-to-back. In another life, he\u2019d be preparing to enter high school or searching for a summer job that would pay him enough cash to take his crush on a date to the mall. Instead, he\u2019s hearing it from his father for neglecting an email from his agent. Wolfhard is just fourteen years old, and he\u2019s having trouble articulating to his parents that he just wants to pretend like he\u2019s a normal kid\u2014if only for a day. <\/p>\n

Eventually, the two sides formed an unwritten parent-child handbook for navigating Hollywood in your teens. Wolfhard\u2019s parents were always supportive\u2014that was never the problem. His dad always said, \u201cIf you were a math geek, I would have driven you to whatever mathletes thing.\u201d But from the very first second that Stranger Things <\/em>hit Netflix in 2016<\/a>, Wolfhard\u2019s father wasn\u2019t driving him to math competitions\u2014it was more like television premieres and film festivals.<\/p>\n

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Rona Liana Ahdout<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

\u201cNo one can prepare anyone for it,\u201d Wolfhard, now twenty-three, tells me about becoming a child star in the streaming age. \u201cIt was incredibly exciting, and it still is, but there was a period in my teenage years where it was just hard. I wanted the people in my life to just be chill.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the most formative years of his life, Wolfhard filmed five seasons of one of the most popular television shows on the planet<\/a>: Stranger Things<\/em>. He played Mike Wheeler, the leader of a group of kids in a suburban sci-fi story and the one person who inspires everyone to work together to fight their greatest obstacles. During that time, Wolfhard also starred in two IT <\/em>movies, two Ghostbusters <\/em>sequels, and an indie Sundance flick directed by Jesse Eisenberg<\/a>. He codirected his own film\u2014a teen summer-camp slasher called Hell of a Summer<\/em>\u2014which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2023.<\/p>\n

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Off-screen, he wrote an album as a solo artist, titled Happy Birthday<\/em>, and he even helmed a stop-motion music video for the George Harrison estate, all before he turned twenty-three just a week ago, on December 22. It\u2019s a testament to how\u2014even at such a young age\u2014Wolfhard refused to let the world pigeonhole him as Mike Wheeler. \u201cThere shouldn\u2019t be a limit to what you\u2019re curious about,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

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Rona Liana Ahdout<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

When we meet in early December, Wolfhard is wrapping up a photo shoot at the Esquire office in New York City, where he donned a knight\u2019s helmet\u2014a nod to Mike Wheeler\u2019s Dungeons & Dragons class in Stranger Things<\/em>. It\u2019s been a crazy day. He\u2019s in his seventh time zone in under a month as he promotes the fifth and final season of <\/a>Stranger Things<\/a> <\/em>across the globe. It\u2019s dizzying just to think about, but he\u2019s traveled from London to Italy to Los Angeles, back to London, Berlin, Japan, and now New York in roughly thirty days. The night before we talk, he performed his song \u201cTrailers after dark\u201d live on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon<\/em> and tried his best not to spoil anything that happens in the Stranger Things <\/em>finale, which debuted on Netflix just before the Times Square Ball dropped Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n

The culminating episode of the Netflix series had a lot of ground to cover, as the kids of Hawkins, Indiana, underwent the final fight against the powerful villain, Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower). There was little for Wolfhard to say about the end until everyone had seen it, but rest assured: he gives one of the finale’s best performances, bringing Mike Wheeler’s story full circle. He’s even the final face we see on screen, and it feels right. Wolfhard is incredibly proud of the work they\u2019ve done, and when we speak, he’s excited to witness this lifelong project reach its conclusion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of sadness that comes along with it, because it was our lives for so long\u2014it\u2019s like our school, our childhood,\u201d Wolfhard tells me. \u201cI\u2019m someone who is a natural optimist that believes that everything will go the way that it should, but I also have the tendency to not experience things in the moment so that I can prepare for future things. This is a very big transitional period, so it\u2019s terrifying. But I think it\u2019s all going to go the way that it should.\u201d <\/p>\n

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Rona Liana Ahdout<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

Even though Wolfhard isn\u2019t certain of what exactly comes next after Stranger Things<\/em>, he lights up when he starts talking about his true passion: movies. Throughout every family-supper tiff about keeping his escalating fame as normal as possible, the one constant in the Wolfhard household was a shared love of film. Wolfhard bonds with his Stranger Things <\/em>costars Joe Keery<\/a> and Charlie Heaton about being freewheeling multi-hyphenates with a deep appreciation of the art that preceded their own. But it might be Wolfhard\u2014the youngest among them\u2014who has the oldest soul. He reveres the Beatles for their multimedia approach to art, and he lists sixties films like Ken Loach\u2019s coming-of-age drama Kes <\/em>as among his favorite movies of all time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019m a rare case or anything, but I do think if you were to pick out from my high school class of who was into independent film from the seventies, it probably wouldn\u2019t have been a lot of people,\u201d says Wolfhard. <\/p>\n

After diving through Wes Anderson\u2019s filmography<\/a>, he toured British films of the sixties and seventies\u2014where he found Kes. <\/em>He recounts Noah Baumbach\u2019s The Squid and the Whale<\/em>, as well as campy horror classics such as Shaun of the Dead <\/em>and even teen comedies like Superbad<\/em>. Seth Rogen went to high school near his house in Vancouver, and Wolfhard has always looked up to the hometown hero. \u201cI remember hearing when I was maybe nine or ten that Superbad<\/em> was started by thirteen-year-olds,\u201d Wolfhard says. I was like, Oh, I can do this.<\/em>\u201d <\/p>\n

Of course, that\u2019s an early age to know exactly what you want to do when you grow up. But according to Wolfhard, he was fully immersed already. He recalls a documentary his parents showed him about special-effects designer Greg Nicotero, who worked on Day of the Dead<\/em> and Predator <\/em>with a crew of his closest friends. For Wolfhard, that was the dream. \u201cI would just watch it over and over and over again, so maybe I was a little more of an obsessive for my age,\u201d he admits. <\/p>\n

Wolfhard found that combination of creative success and close friendships for himself in Stranger Things<\/em>. He lived with his costar Gaten Matarazzo<\/a> during the filming of season 5. Their messy apartment was as close to simulating a college dorm as you could get for young TV stars. He shared endless movie nights with Keery and Heaton, and he grew incredibly close to a family of \u201ckids,\u201d as they call each other, who were all aboard the same rocket ship to fame. <\/p>\n

For Wolfhard, the final day of shooting Stranger Things <\/em>was like a snapshot of their entire childhood. All the kids were surrounded by their parents, who rarely showed up on set for season 5. And with each turning of the page on the final script, it was like watching another chapter of his life come to an end.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just really reminded me of why I got into acting in the first place and why I love making films,\u201d Wolfhard says. \u201cI was lucky to be a part of a really tight-knit family that enjoyed making stuff together. It just reminded me that at the heart of this show, even though it\u2019s like the biggest season yet, these are all the same people that I\u2019ve always known, and this is why I love the show so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Rona Liana Ahdout<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Rona Liana Ahdout<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Once the Stranger Things <\/em>press tour finally wraps up, Wolfhard plans to embark on another project close to home. He reveals that he\u2019s writing a film about the rock band the Replacements with his father. Eric Wolfhard, a lawyer and researcher who focuses on aboriginal land claims, was also once a screenwriter for the Gersh Agency in Los Angeles. He grew up around the same time as the band, and he spent his childhood touring America as the youngest person on his cycling team. So according to Finn, he didn\u2019t really know how much his father actually understood what he was going through until they started working together. <\/p>\n

\u201cTheir bassist, Tommy Stinson, started in that band when he was really young\u2014probably eleven years old,\u201d says Wolfhard. \u201cUltimately, the band had a lot of turmoil and trauma in their lives, and it was not healthy, but there\u2019s something incredibly relatable there\u2014just being a kid in the adult world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolfhard doesn\u2019t know if the film will ever see the light of day, but the experience so far has brought him and his father closer together than ever before. If anything, it\u2019s provided the Wolfhards a more exciting reason to talk about responding to his agent\u2019s emails about what\u2019s next. <\/p>\n

Below, Wolfhard shares more about what he\u2019s working on after Stranger Things<\/em>, his character\u2019s recent reappearance in the IT: Welcome to Derry <\/em>finale, and how he feels about streaming\u2019s potential takeover of the film industry.<\/p>\n

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ESQUIRE: Have you ever come close to spoiling something about Stranger Things<\/em>? <\/strong><\/p>\n

FINN WOLFHARD: I met someone at an ice cream place yesterday and they asked me, \u201cWho dies?\u201d I just said [the name of] a character, but they don\u2019t die. I just thought, S<\/em>tart tricking people<\/em>. Then they\u2019re like, \u201cIs that true?\u201d And I was like, \u201cNo. Why would I do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a good way to skirt around it. Give crazy answers until they don\u2019t trust you\u2014so they stop asking.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Plus, it sounds fake. If you were to say, \u201cOh, I met so-and-so at Van Leeuwen Ice Cream and they told me so-and so-died,\u201d they\u2019d be like, \u201cShut up. That\u2019s not true.\u201d<\/p>\n

As someone who starred in one of the biggest streaming shows ever but also loves classic films, how do you feel about the \u201cStreaming is the end of movies as we know it\u201d talk?<\/strong> <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think streaming is the end of movies. Streaming can be incredible, but there\u2019s nothing like seeing a movie in a theater. It\u2019s a communal experience and I do believe that if theaters go away, it\u2019s not going to be as fun of a world. Going to the movies is something that makes you feel like you\u2019re not alone, and when everything is condensed into one thing on your TV, it amplifies antisocial life. We\u2019re at a huge transitional period for the industry. Stranger Things<\/em> is ending and Netflix is about to buy Warner Bros., and I don\u2019t know what that\u2019s going to look like. Consolidating and trying to have a monopoly on film is not going to work. Streaming is amazing and streaming should be able to have a place, but it shouldn\u2019t be killing theaters.
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Rona Liana Ahdout<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

Did you know that a photo of your <\/strong>character from IT<\/em><\/strong> would appear in the<\/strong> IT: Welcome to Derry <\/em><\/strong><\/em>season 1 finale?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I knew that years ago, actually. When they first started thinking about that show, it was probably 2021. Barbara and Andy Muschietti both told me, \u201cYou\u2019re involved.\u201d Yeah, I\u2019m connected. I think there\u2019s something else that will come up eventually that I\u2019m excited for people to see.<\/p>\n

How did you convince people to fund Hell of a Summer<\/em>, your directorial debut, when you were nineteen years old?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A lot of it was just convincing people that we knew what we were doing. Our pitch, which is the thing that ended up working in the end, was like, \u201cIt\u2019s a movie about kids our age, so who knows these teenagers more than teenagers?\u201d For a lot of people, that did not work, but for some people it did. It\u2019s a miracle that that thing got made. I started that movie when I was sixteen and Billy [Bryk] was probably eighteen or nineteen. We made it when I was twenty, and then it came out this year. So it was my life for a long time. We didn\u2019t have a production company. We didn\u2019t have a producer fielding calls for us. It was just us convincing everyone that we can make this, basically until Neon picked it up.
<\/p>\n

And now you\u2019re working on another movie together, <\/strong>Crash Land.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah. We finished that. It\u2019s about a young group of farm boys in Canada who are basically self-proclaimed stuntmen, and they kind of just film each other doing stunts, Jackass<\/em> style. We got to go just shoot this really fun thing in Canada and be the producers on it. It was such a blast. We\u2019re hoping to go to festival next year. <\/p>\n

How much does the reception to something you made affect you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Usually, I just make something and move on to the next thing. Obviously, a bad review or a shitty comment, of course, that would hurt anyone. But I\u2019m also not obsessing over any of that stuff either. I like some movies that haven\u2019t been well received and I just look at it as a person-by-person basis. But yeah, there\u2019s definitely been times where I\u2019ve been bummed about reception. Acting is a really weird thing because you\u2019re expressing yourself and that\u2019s the thing that matters, but also it\u2019s for other people. No matter what you tell yourself, you want it to work for people and you want to do right by people\u2019s time. You want people to enjoy themselves. So it sucks when you work really hard on something and it doesn\u2019t work, but that\u2019s just how it is.
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Rona Liana Ahdout<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

Do you plan to keep making music as well, or will you focus on acting and directing?<\/strong>
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I have nothing on the books officially for acting. I definitely want to pursue and keep on acting but only if it\u2019s something that I\u2019m really in love with. Other than that, I\u2019m probably going to tour a little bit with my band next year and put out another album. I have some music that I\u2019ve written over the last two years that I want to record. So I\u2019m kind of keeping it open.
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Is there anyone you would love to work with next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d love to work with Jesse Eisenberg again. I feel like he really understood me as an actor. Paul Thomas Anderson, obviously. Everyone in the world wants to be in a movie by him. But I mean, also, I would love to just work with friends. There\u2019s so many people that I respect that I would love to just keep learning from.<\/p>\n

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Story by Josh Rosenberg<\/em>
Photographs by Rona Liana Ahdout<\/em>
Styling by Warren Alfie Baker<\/em>
Coat, shirt, trousers, loafers, and socks by Thom Browne<\/em>
Grooming by Ruth Hernandez<\/em>
Editor in chief: Michael Sebastian<\/em>
Esquire executive design director: Martin Hoops<\/em>
Esquire visual director: James Morris<\/em>
Esquire entertainment director: Andrea Cuttler<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.esquire.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou have to answer your email,\u201d Finn Wolfhard\u2019s father tells him. The young actor is home in Vancouver in 2017 for a break after filming IT and Stranger Things season 2 back-to-back. In another life, he\u2019d be preparing to enter high school or searching for a summer job that would pay him enough cash to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2219143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[310910,429169,310911,285684,429168],"class_list":["post-2219142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-content-type-feature","tag-contentid-81746cce-5696-4889-ac59-79680387a4b0","tag-displaytype-long-form-article","tag-locale-us","tag-shorttitle-finn-wolfhard-finally-left-hawkins-what-now"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Welcome-to-Derry-Cameo-and-Upcoming-Film-\u2018Crash-Land-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2219142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2219142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2219142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2219144,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2219142\/revisions\/2219144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2219143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2219142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2219142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2219142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}