‘Stranger Things: First Shadow': Louis McCartney on ‘creating a language through the movement' to play the tortured Henry Creel

Yahoo

22-05-2025

'When I get out there, I'm not giving first,' says Louis McCartney on the exchange of energy between him and the audience each night at Stranger Things: The First Shadow. "They're there and they're tapping, whooping, cheering, screaming immediately. They're ready to have a good night." McCartney plays the central role of Henry Creel in the new Broadway play, which serves as a prequel to the hit Netflix series. In a recent interview with Gold Derby, McCartney describes how the excited energy of American audiences helps propel him through a physically demanding performance.
Stranger Things fans enter the theater already familiar with the character Henry Creel. Raphael Luce portrays a young version of Henry in a Season 4 flashback, while Jamie Campbell Bower embodies the adult version and his twisted villainous form known as Vecna. The First Shadow takes place in 1959, when a teenage Henry arrives in Hawkins, Ind.
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McCartney says there is 'a strange giving and taking' between his stage iteration of the character and his on-screen counterparts. The actor points towards Bower's performance during a scene with Eleven in the Rainbow Room of Hawkins lab as particularly inspiring. 'It was revolutionary for me, for my work,' he explains, 'It kind of encapsulated his darker side. And in the play, I guess my job is to deal with this nerdy kid who is a good kid and he wants to do right.'Many of Luce's expressions helped McCartney draw a line between Henry's earnest younger self and his ultimate path to darkness. 'There's this haunted look of dissection,' he says of Luce's portrayal. 'He's constantly questioning if he wants to step away. And in our play, we're dealing with this tearing of structural values and morals in a young kid because he's so malleable. And my question was how do you connect the dots between Vecna and a nerd?'
McCartney finds fascination in the 'dichotomy' that resides in Henry. He is careful to telegraph the boy's humanity while also showcasing the pull towards wrath and hate, due to a supernatural connection to the evil Mind Flayer of the Upside Down. 'He feels all these things constantly as he's trying to suppress them,' notes the actor.
SEE'Stranger Things: The First Shadow' reviews: Critics praise the 'visceral thrill ride,' but lament its lack of 'emotional connection'
The tender side of Henry is on full display within his unlikely friendship with Patty Newby (Gabrielle Nevaeh). For the first time, Henry finds someone with shared interests, with whom he can confide in. 'He'll follow somebody if they tell him what he's doing is good because that's what he wants. And when he meets Patty, it's this new version of good that he's never experienced before,' says McCartney.
Patty is perhaps the only character who sees the good in Henry, one glimmer of light in his otherwise very dark world. 'She does say to him that being weird is okay and that it's okay to be yourself, which is a big question we throw at the audience the whole time, of how do you feel about yourself? And it's nice to see people fit in because a lot of us don't normally in our everyday lives,' notes McCartney. 'His relationship to fear, to social anxiety, to relationships, to happiness is something that I personally can feel at any point in my day as well.'
The First Shadow is stuffed to the brim with eye-popping special effects. One of McCartney's most pivotal scenes involves a true test of the trust between Henry and Patty, as the two actors fight their way through a nightmarish vision sequence in the school bathroom. There will be no spoilers here, but safe to say that the terrifying illusions and physical feats in this sequence have the audience screaming and roaring with applause every night. 'That scene is just bonkers,' admits McCartney, as he describes the ultra precise timing and breathing required to execute each illusion. 'I get out of the scene and I'm absolutely pooped,' says the actor. 'It's so scary. It's so thrilling. I love hearing everybody's reactions.'
In addition to these effects-driven moments, Henry also experiences countless fits of mental anguish and violent convulsions as dark forces work their way into his mind. McCartney credits 'time and patience and practice' for being able to sustain the physical toll of the role for an eight-show week, but confesses that it's not easy. There are several movement captains keeping an eye on the actor's stamina and he is greatly aided by finding 'an arc of movement' as the Mind Flayer gains control of Henry. 'We're starting it off basically as this baby Mind Flayer. And by the end of the play, it's like an alien, it's like a face hugger, and it's completely enveloping him,' describes McCartney as he demonstrates how the flick of his arms grows in intensity during the play.
'Creating a language through the movement was really important because I feel that much of the emotional breakdowns are in tandem with the physical breakdowns,' explains the actor, 'because one is his heart and his humanity, and the other is the Mind Flayer and the power that comes with that. And that's the character.'
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