There are many kinds of evil in Stranger Things. From the monstrous Mind Flayer that inhabits the Upside Down to the nefarious doctors who experiment on superpowered kids at the Hawkins lab. But in season two the show introduced a new kind of very human kind of evil in Billy. The new teen in town played by Dacre Montgomery is a vicious bully who took his own abuse out on the young kids around him including his little sister Max (Sadie Sink.)
When we sat down with Montgomery on the ’80s mall set of the third season of the hit show, he opened up about his journey with the character as well as teased that Billy is going to be nothing less than “pure evil” when Stranger Things hits this summer.
As is often the way in Hawkins, Indiana, strange things begin with something utterly mundane, and for Billy, that’s a new summer job. “We find Billy as a lifeguard at the local pool. We kind of meet him there. He’s up to his usual kind of antics, I suppose you could call it. We pick up in some respects, where we left off last season, some of the flirtation with some of the moms which is lots of fun. We had a great time shooting at the pool, not far from the studio.”
The real tease here though was what Montgomery shared next. “Then something sort of far more sinister starts to unfold, which has been a lot of fun to work with because I spoke a lot last season about humanizing the villain and you know, especially the scene with Billy’s father, and seeing a real human antagonist. This season I think it takes a much as I say, more sinister turn, and slightly supernatural. So that’s been a lot of fun to play with, where the human meets the supernatural.”
Obviously, the secrets of Stranger Things are kept under tight wraps but the actor did share how much satisfaction he’d been having the chance to explore the dark side.”It’s been a lot of fun to play with a character who’s even further from myself and further from what Billy was last season. The Duffers and other directors have been very generous about giving me the space to play with certain ideas and aspects of the character that we didn’t explore last season. So that’s been a lot of fun. I probably had the most rewarding week of my career as a struggling actor as studying actor about two months ago, with Shawn Levy and I was kind of like “I’m done. That’s as good as it gets. I’ve had an absolute blast.”
Though he wouldn’t tell us exactly what kind of supernatural evil he’ll be dealing with it’s definitely not a threat that fans of the show should be taking lightly. “Yeah the idea of him last season was this human antagonist. And what I mean by saying it becomes more sinister is because this supernatural element is brought it. I don’t think he’s just bad. I think it’s pure evil, to use like a cliche. He’s like, pure evil this season. But the supernatural element that’s incorporated makes it really interesting and makes it dark, and at times horrible, but I hope that the choices are interesting and diverse.”
Stranger Things hits Netflix on July 4th
Images: Netflix