What’s in store for season two of Stranger Things? Recently, Paul Reiser spoke with Entertainment Weekly about his upcoming role on the Netflix series.
Season two of the supernatural drama will feature returning cast members Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, and Caleb McLaughlin in addition to new stars Brett Gelman, Sean Astin, Linnea Berthelsen, Dacre Montgomery, and Sadie Sink.
In the interview, Reiser revealed it was his son who told him about Stranger Things:
Yeah, it dropped on a Friday and that weekend my son, who was 15 at the time, said, “Have you heard of this new show?” I said, “No.” And he said, “It’s great.” I said, “When did it come out?” He said, “Yesterday!” So that’s how much he has his finger on the pulse. He’s my cultural touchstone. He told me and I sat down at my desk and I got a call from my agent and he said, “Have you heard of this show Stranger Things?” And I said, “Of course I have! What am I — an animal?” Literally, I heard about it five minutes earlier.”
He mentioned that he still doesn’t quite know the plot of season two:
They told me who I was playing and they told me what they had in mind. It was sort of nebulous — is he a good guy or a bad guy? To be honest, I’ve only read a few of the scripts so I still don’t know and I’m not sure they know. I think part of what they were tickled by was, to whatever extent people know me from Aliens, they’re automatically going, “Oh this guy is no good.” I don’t know where they’re going with it but it’s a fun thing to play.
Reiser plays a character called Dr. Owens who is “in charge of the lab and a cleanup of the previous incident”:
There’s a little more humanity. Modine’s character had very few lines so he was this looming, powerful presence. My guy is much more hands-on and sort of among his many degrees is that he has a bedside manner that Modine’s character did not have. I know coming into this what this community has gone through and my job is to try and walk them through their mistrust.”
Season two of Stranger Things premieres on Netflix on Halloween 2017.