His time as Mike Wheeler behind him, Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard is ready for a change of pace.
In a new interview with Esquire, Wolfhard said he has “nothing on the books officially” for another acting role now that Stranger Things has ended. Instead, Wolfhard plans to focus on his music career.
“I definitely want to pursue and keep on acting but only if it’s something that I’m really in love with,” he explained. “Other than that, I’m probably going to tour a little bit with my band next year and put out another album. I have some music that I’ve written over the last two years that I want to record. So I’m kind of keeping it open.”
The young star was the lead vocalist and a guitarist for the rock band Calpurnia, and he’s a member of the band The Aubreys, which released its debut full-length album, Karaoke Alone, in 2021. And this June, Wolfhard released his debut studio album, the indie-rock release Happy Birthday.
AllMusic critic Tim Sendra gave Happy Birthday four out of five stars, writing, “The quality of the songs, the impact of the vocals, the excellent production, and [Wolfhard’s] ability to reference the past without aping it combine to make it a superb start for a promising solo career.”
Wolfhard does have at least one post-Stranger Things performance on its way to the screen: He and Gabriel LaBelle (Saturday Night) are stars and producers of the upcoming stunt comedy film Crash Land.
“We finished that,” the actor revealed to Esquire. “It’s 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-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’re hoping to go to festival next year.”
Wolfhard also has a list of dream collaborators for any future acting prospects. “I’d love to work with Jesse Eisenberg [director of Wolfhard’s 2022 film When You Finish Saving the World] again. I feel like he really understood me as an actor,” he told the magazine. “[One Battle After Another] director 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’s so many people that I respect that I would love to just keep learning from.”
Stranger Things, All Episodes, Netflix
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