A STRANGER THINGS Halloween Check-in With Burke Swanson & Alison Jaye

Joyce and Hopper are the heartbeat of the Stranger Things universe, so there is no better way to spend Halloween than catching up with Alison Jaye and Burke Swanson to see how things are going over at Hawkins High. 

Our conversation has been edited and condensed for length and clarity. 

Theatrely: So you are seven months into the run,  how's it going over in Hawkins? 

Burke Swanson: Yeah, we just hit just over 200 performances now. And I think it's that really beautiful moment when you have a company with swings, covers, understudies, everybody on stage. We've had enough time and vacations for everybody to have figured out how to make this really incredible show work in every possible, different way. And it now is like a big celebration of all the hard work that we've all collectively been putting in.

Alison Jaye: Yeah, both of us recently went on our first vacations and it was incredibly eye-opening to come back and be able to look at what we do with fresh eyes. And it was a level of astonishment that I had on stage playing my normal character as much as I had when I had the opportunity to watch the show for the first time the other night. A few weeks ago, I went to see the show on a personal day. And I truly had maybe the best theatrical experience I've ever had in a theater. So, to be able to have gone from watching all of my incredible coworkers and castmates do what they did to then take a moment away and come back with fresh eyes and participate in the production again, it feels like a refreshed 2.0 chapter to kind of engine us to the end of our segment of the contract.

I'm curious, how has your relationship with your characters changed since previews?

Burke Swanson: I feel like there's so many moments of transition as you meet a hundred shows or as you meet the halfway point of a year contract, right? I think in film it's often talked about: there's the film that you wrote, there's the film that you shot, and there's the film that you edited. And if we're in that sort of mirror of a process, I think we're in the edited version now. It's that moment when you realize: we had to do a lot of things in order to get the engine going and to make sure that the characters resonated immediately. And now, having seen that it already does that, we actually get to settle into it and actually bring it down so that it is a real human connection. We have one of the most technically spectacular advanced show ever created for the stage, period. That is not just Broadway, that is internationally. It's even bigger than the West End production where this all started, right? It is ten times bigger than you can even imagine. And in the midst of that, while the audience is sort of leaning back, our director, Justin [Martin] had a great moment: of the scenes, particularly with the trio, Bob, Joyce, and Hopper, is the moment where the audience can actually lean in. And when you work from that perspective, particularly as an actor, it's a freeing moment because it's actually for you to remember the heart of why we all come to Hawkins every single day.

Alison Jaye: I think that's what I've learned from my character at this point, too. There is such a demonstrative nature to her, especially at 17 in the show, running around as the director of the internal play that I'm putting on. I think what I'm learning now and trying to lean into more than ever is the vulnerability of her, rather than, like, the difference of what we show and how loud she is and how present she is, and how she's corralling all these people all the time. But now what I am seeing, the colors that I am seeing and that I'm excited by is, like, what that takes from her and what that means for her. And I actually feel like that's part of the discovery of coming back from time away and getting to step into the role again and really think about what you are saying in the risks that this young woman is taking and how vulnerable that is. And kind of, it allows me to add some more humanity back into it instead of like relying on the machine. So I feel like my answer to that would be leaning into, like, the surrender of the vulnerability of her.

Season Five is almost here…you can feel the anticipation around the world as we're getting closer to it. Are you and the company just as excited as the rest of us?

Alison Jaye: Yeah, I remember when they released the trailer for the first time and they began to play it after the bows and not only did it sound unbelievable in our theater, it was like Dolby Atmos sound being immersed in this trailer, but I remember all of us crowding around the screen backstage to watch the audience's reactions of the trailer and the two of us standing back there and you'd be like, that's us. It is something I still have not yet been able to piece together and let sink in, and I think that's for the best. I think the awe-struck nature that I still feel of this, like, distant collaboration that we are having by playing these younger versions of these characters, I would like to always let it live in a sense of awe rather than anything else. But the excitement is huge. It's also the holiday season, so everything about, I mean, of course, they're brilliant, the timing of this coming out is inherently family-oriented, is people-oriented, is community-oriented, which larger than just the choice of when to release the show, it's the heart of the show. That's what Stranger Things is. It's a weird community event every time on screen, right? And so that's what is physically happening in our space every night. But I feel like it's also felt with being able to celebrate and watch these moments during the holiday season together. So, it's great.

Halloween rapid round of questions. Here we go…Favorite Halloween costumes you've ever worn.

Burke Swanson: When I was a wee boy, I decided that I was going to dress up as Harry Potter for as many years as Harry was in school, i.e. the movies. So, not consecutively because there was a couple of Halloweens that I couldn't dress up, but I dressed up as Harry Potter eight times for eight years. And of course over the years it started with like, you know I would dye my hair black and then, you know, would like have the scar and the glasses and the full, you know, like tie and everything. And by the end, it was my dirty blonde hair, you know, hippie glasses and a cloak with a stick or something like that. 

Alison Jaye: Oh, that's that is years of commitment.

Burke Swanson: Yeah, a little second-grade Burke being like, this is what I will do.

Alison Jaye: Growing up, we'd make all of our costumes. And so it was an event in our house of like, all right, how many weeks is it gonna take to make this thing? My brother and I did a really good year of like I was a thing of milk that I painted like head to toe and he was a cookie. My dad just showed me an amazing one where I was little girl and I was just a big windmill because it's the town we live in. So, that was kind of incredible, just Alison the human windmill.

Favorite Halloween candy.

Burke Swanson: Ooh, I love the grape Nerds, the little nerd clusters in the box.

Alison Jaye: I love Sweet Tarts. Do you remember those? I would just pop one under my tongue and I go, woo! So, I really loved those. Haven't had one of those in years.

Favorite horror movie?

Burke Swanson: I think my two favorites would be Jennifer's Body and then the one in which I still can't get out of my head I've only ever watched once was The Exorcist.

Alison Jaye: For me, the two that came to mind this season, I mean, the feeling I had watching Hereditary was crazy. So, that being one of them and Toni Colette's performance in that movie is disturbingly good.

Pumpkin spice latte, yay or nay?

Alison Jaye: Yay, but less sweet, like it can be like not--. I need like barely any sugar, like, any sweetener in it.

Burke Swanson: I'm a dry cider kind of guy. I need my pumpkin spice latte to be dry as well. I want, I want true pumpkin spice. I don't want the pumpkin spice syrup. You know what I'm saying?

Do you believe in ghosts?

Burke Swanson: Yes, 100%. 100%. I don't know that I've ever, I haven't personally like interacted face to face with ghosts, but I have many times been in spaces or homes in which I've turned around and known that I was very much not alone. And it is, it's a very strange. It's a very strange experience. But yeah, big capital Y yes.

Alison Jaye: Yeah, capital Y Yes over here.

Which cast member is likely to steal all the candy from the dressing room?

Alison Jaye & Burke Swanson: Patrick Scott McDermott.

Burke Swanson: Who is currently playing Bob Newby. I have never seen a child eat more candy.

If your character was going to a Halloween party, what would they dress up as?

Burke Swanson: Well, I think the hard part is, it's like the two people who wouldn't probably dress up.

Alison Jaye: We wouldn't dress up! People would walk in and be like... SCREW YOU, WE DON'T DO HALLOWEEN!

When you think back and remember your time here in Hawkins in five, ten, twenty years, what do you want to remember most? 

Burke Swanson: There's so many ways in which the show did not need to be what it was. From our two directors, Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, to our writer, Kate Trefry, to Sonia Friedman, to Netflix, to the Duffer Brothers, the collaboration of those folks and the openness and saying, let us make the best thing possible. And Stephen Daldry's unabashed willingness to take any idea from any place created the foundation for 34 very young people in heart, spirit and career or whatever it was, and people who have had illustrious careers, to all come together and say, let us make the best thing possible. And I truly think that I am surrounded by, every single day, the people that will mark the rest of my life. These are people that I will be at their weddings, I will, you know, come and visit their children, I will come to their openings, I'll celebrate and advocate for their work and what they're creating. It truly, to me, is a guarantee of life for this art form that so many view as sort of constricting. And this is the antithesis to it, is this group of people backstage and onstage.

Alison Jaye: That's exactly right. So much of what--. I was living in LA for 11 years before I moved. I'm from New York, but before I moved back here to do this job. And so much of I was doing in LA was a ton of voiceover, video game work, and a lot of film and TV stuff. And I remember feeling, and talking to my incredible manager about how like all I was yearning for was community, a community that lasted, and a place where I could dig my toes and, like, my teeth into and stay there for a minute with these people. Because I would have all of these like amazing jobs pop up that felt like bubbles of community that then kind of disperse and you keep, if you're lucky, one or two friends and new people from those worlds and try to merge them together. But I was really vocal for the first time about exactly what I wanted and I didn't know what form it would show itself in but I wanted sincere community and I grew up as a little girl working on Broadway so I think there was a part of me that was really yearning to come back to myself that way and that type of environment and, genuinely, I couldn't have asked for a better group of people and group of creative team. And so I think when I look back on this experience, it's incredible to be able to even in this moment say the thing that i'm going to remember most is the people, is the community. It's like under the guise of like the biggest most shiny thing in the world, none of that, none of that matters. It's like it's the fact that this creative team spent years. I am a testament to it because I started working with them three years ago, but years finding the right people that they wanted to work with and put those people in a room together making sure like these people will hold each other up, like these people will take care of each other. And I just remember, before our directors left and our writers left, that they would end every note session and every moment, even before opening night, I think one of the last things they said before we all went backstage was just like: take care each other. And it was just like, what more could you ask for?

Burke Swanson: What more could you ask for and then they did.

Alison Jaye: And they did, and we still do. That's what I'll remember.