Latest news with #Wolfhard
News18
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- News18
Finn Wolfhard On Stranger Things Season 5: ‘We Are All Together Again'
Last Updated: Finn Wolfhard expressed his happiness at having the full cast together in the final season of Stranger Things. As Netflix's popular series Stranger Things gears up to drop its final season later this year, fans are eagerly looking forward to one last ride filled with supernatural thrills and a whirlwind of emotions. Although an official release date is yet to be announced, the fifth season is expected to arrive in two parts, with the first likely premiering at the end of this year, and the second sometime in early 2026. Amid fan speculation and growing excitement around the upcoming season of the sci-fi horror drama, Finn Wolfhard, who has portrayed Mike Wheeler since the very beginning, shared his thoughts on the series' journey from its 2016 debut to the much-anticipated finale. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Wolfhard said, 'This last season is sort of a crossroads, and so we're getting back into a lot of the dynamics of season one, which is really fun." Reflecting on his character, he added, 'There are some 'leader Mike' moments, and it's a very grand season, obviously. Every season has gotten bigger and bigger, and this one is huge, but it's also kind of isolated as well." Wolfhard, 21, expressed his happiness at having the full cast together again, after being separated across three different storylines in the previous season. He even admitted to feeling a bit envious of the Hawkins storyline, which followed Dustin, Lucas, Erica, Max, Steve, Eddie, Nancy, and Robin as they investigated a series of murders that eventually led them to the Vecna. Originally set to release in 2023, Stranger Things Season 5 was delayed due to the Hollywood strike. When asked by The Hollywood Reporter if he found the wait frustrating, Wolfhard said, 'I'm definitely not frustrated. It is what it is. You spend so much time on a show that it's all-encompassing, and it's something that means so much to me. It's the thing that made my career, and it really shaped my life. So as far as the show not coming out yet, the only frustrating part is wanting to see it and having to wait. I just want people to see it, and I want to be able to see it. But the rest of it? No. I'm indebted to Stranger Things, and it'll take however long it's going to take. There's no way to control that, so you might as well just ride it." Stranger Things was first introduced to audiences in 2016. Set in the 1980s, the story follows a group of children and adults in the town of Hawkins, Indiana as they uncover a series of mysterious events tied to supernatural powers and secret government experiments, most notably, the discovery of an alternate dimension known as the Upside Down. Season 5 will see the return of the regular ensemble cast, including Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), Finn Wolfhard (Mike), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas), Noah Schnapp (Will), and Sadie Sink (Max). Familiar faces such as Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), David Harbour (Jim Hopper), Brett Gelman (Murray Bauman), and Jamie Campbell Bower (Vecna) will reprise their roles as well. The Duffer Brothers have promised that Season 5 will serve as a 'love letter" to the audience. First Published:
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Stranger Things' Star, 22, Looks Totally Different With Drastic Hair Change
is rocking a whole new hairstyle—and he now looks much different than his Stranger Things character. While making an appearance at an event in Tokyo, Japan on Sunday, May 25, the 22-year-old actor revealed his freshly-shaved new buzz cut while hitting the red carpet for his photocall. 🎬SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox🎬 Fans are used to seeing Wolfhard on screen with a head full of long, dark curls, the same look his character Mike Wheeler has been rocking since the show premiered in 2016. But after filming the fifth and final season of the hit Netflix sci-fi series, Wolfhard has changed things up, opting for a clean, closely-shaved cut. The former child actor was on the red carpet for the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards in Tokyo on Sunday, where he was accompanied by his Stranger Things castmate , who plays Dustin Henderson on the series. Like Wolfhard and Matarazzo, several members of the cast were just kids when they first started filming Stranger Things, and viewers have watched them grow into adults right before our eyes. Among them is , now 21, who no longer has a short pixie cut that her character Eleven was known for in the early seasons. Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair) and (Max Mayfield) have also gracefully blossomed into adulthood since their days as child actors on the series.'Stranger Things' Star, 22, Looks Totally Different With Drastic Hair Change first appeared on Parade on May 25, 2025
Express Tribune
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Finn Wolfhard debuts buzz cut at Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2025 in Tokyo
Actor Finn Wolfhard, best known for his role in Stranger Things, ushered in a bold new era with a dramatic hairstyle change at the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards in Tokyo. Stepping onto the orange carpet as a presenter, Wolfhard debuted a freshly shaved buzz cut—his most striking transformation yet. Finn Wolfhard debuts new look at Anime Awards 2025 — Stranger Things Memes (@SThingsMeme) May 25, 2025 THIS IS NOT A DRILL FINN WOLFHARD IS BALD EVERYONE WAKE THE FUCK UP — Ariel 🍄 🎸 STREAM OBJECTION! 🎸 (@youllhave2wait) May 25, 2025 Alongside his bold style choice, Wolfhard was joined by co-star Gaten Matarazzo to present the award for Best Continuing Series, which was given to Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Hashira Training Arc. The event, now in its third consecutive year in Tokyo, drew notable attention from both the anime and entertainment communities. Since first gaining recognition in 2016 with the debut of Netflix's Stranger Things, Wolfhard has consistently worn his signature wavy, longer hairstyle. The buzz cut marks a major departure from that familiar look. Until now, the only cast member seen with a shaved head was Millie Bobby Brown during her early portrayal of Eleven—making Wolfhard's new appearance a standout moment. To complement his fresh cut, Wolfhard wore a textured blazer paired with printed pants featuring an exposed pocket detail—an ensemble that balanced edgy with refined. The look was widely praised online, with fans celebrating the actor's evolving style and confident reinvention. The appearance comes ahead of the much-anticipated fifth and final season of Stranger Things. In a 2023 interview, Wolfhard shared his excitement for the show's conclusion, saying the Duffer brothers are aiming to give every character a satisfying ending. Wolfhard's red carpet moment at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards was captured by John Nacion for Getty Images and reported by Sara Delgado for Teen Vogue.
Forbes
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘The Legend Of Ochi' Cast And Director On A24's New Coming-Of-Age Fantasy Movie
'The Legend of Ochi' A24 'I have an allegiance towards the moral superiority of children, and the script was written from that perspective,' Isaiah Saxon told me during an interview ahead of the release of his feature film debut The Legend of Ochi. Right in the line of our favorite 80s coming-of-age movies, The Legend of Ochi takes place on the island of Carpathia, where Yuri, a young and shy girl played by Helena Zengel, befriends a wounded baby Ochi, an animal species feared and chased by her entire village. When discussing the misunderstandings and disagreements between the adults and the kids in the movie, Saxon said, 'Kids are just more open-minded, curious and often more alert to reality. Adults are often stuck in their own stories and patterns.' In The Legend of Ochi, Yuri indeed has a complicated and rocky relationship with her father, played by Willem Dafoe. As for her mother, Dasha, played by Emily Watson, she left when Yuri was little. Saxton cited Roald Dahl's novels as a source of inspiration for these characters. He said, 'Every adult in the Roald Dahl's stories and their dialogues are just manipulation and pathetic.' He added: 'He was also allied with the innocence and authenticity of kids.' Dafoe's character has a huge influence on the kids of the village and teaches them how to fight against the Ochi. He wears an armor and acts like a mean Peter Pan with his Lost Boys, orders the kids around and fills their heads with hatred against the Ochi. Willem Dafoe and Finn Wolfhard A24 Wolfhard's character, Petro, is on the other hand one of Yuri's only allies and even helps her escape her home in the middle of the night with the baby Ochi. In Yuri's bedroom, we can see a poster that says 'Destroy the Father' which is very telling of the relationship between Yuri and her father. Details like this one hidden on a set decor or even in a script can have a huge impact on an actor's performance. During the interview, I asked Zengel and Wolfhard if they remembered how these details helped them have a deeper understanding of their characters, or if a detail in particular stood out the most while reading the script. Wolfhard said, 'That's a great question! I read the script in 2020 but I remember just being really interested in my character's internal conflict, between being someone who's just like a normal kid, that just wants to express himself in some way by trying to be more like Yuri, more curious. But at the same time, he's caught between that and trying to be this sort of traditional masculine figure.' Wolfhard joked and added: 'Which is very fake, because you know, when you think of me, you think of 'Classic, masculine man!'. But I remember just really loving that in the script, I hadn't seen that in a while, so I was excited to have that sort of challenge.' 'The Legend of Ochi' A24 The precision of her character's description is especially what helped Academy Award nominee Emily Watson click right away with her character, Dasha, who now lives alone in the mountains, studying nature. Watson said, 'When I first read the script, instantly I thought 'This woman smells bad, she's messed up!' She's like a witch, there's something about her that's very knowledgable and true, she understands the science of these creatures, yet she kinds of missed the main thing, and her relationships are all completely dysfunctional. And she was married to a man who's essentially a child.' She added: 'When I read the description of her character 'The dash of her car is covered in litter, sweet wrappings and dead birds and there's a wooden hand on the stirring wheel,' I said, 'This smells interesting.'' Saxon's was determined to use puppets for the Ochi and not CGI. Zengel declared that six puppeteers were in charge of baby Ochi while she was interacting with him. She said, 'We wanted to really created a bond between the Ochi and Yuri and having it was almost like life to life, I was reacting to it with the different emotions, face expressions and the movement, it's a totally different experience. I was so excited.' 'The Legend of Ochi' A24 Their bond reaches new heights when Yuri realizes that she can speak the Ochi's language (which sounds a bit like a bird). I asked the director how writing the 'dialogues' between Ochi and Yuri also helped him get a new understanding of these characters. He said, 'They talk the Ochi language just a couple of times in the film, and the struggle is to just make it feel real, you know? Like what would be the common subject matter of these beings? What could they talk about?' He added: 'It's very physical and grounded in the universe, talking about bugs and dirt and trees and eating. Later when they start talking about feelings, it's not normally how you would write this type of scene, with a one word-dialogue. So the challenge was to see how much you can say with one word back and forth.'
NBC News
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- NBC News
How did the creature from 'The Legend of Ochi' get so cute? Director Isaiah Saxon explains
The baby creature from 'The Legend of Ochi' has captured the internet's heart — just as its creators intended. Director Isaiah Saxon tells about how his ideas came to life for the ochi, the name of the wild beasts who live in the forests surrounding a remote village on the fictional island of Carpathia, where the family-friendly movie is set. 'The goal with designing the ochi was to create a realistic-feeling undiscovered primate species, so that a kid watching the film could wonder, 'Have I just not seen the BBC nature special yet on this animal?' Like, this feels like a real animal,' Saxon says. 'The Legend of Ochi,' out April 25, stars Helena Zengel alongside Finn Wolfhard, best known from his role as Mike Wheeler on 'Stranger Things.' When Zengel's character Yuri discovers a baby ochi who has been left behind, she's determined to do whatever it takes to get the adorable creature back to its pack. The pair go on an adventure through woodlands, waters and even a grocery store, where the baby ochi quickly melts the hearts of the characters and viewers alike. Filmed in the Carpathian mountains of Romania, the film takes fantastical elements from its location — but the magic of the baby ochi is that it is a puppet, Wolfhard tells "I didn't see the ochi actually in action until I was on set, and the puppeteers showed me. Basically, they said, 'Do you want to meet him?' And I just looked at the puppet, and it looked up at me and blinked and had head movements,' Wolfhard said. 'It was like a truly real creature.' There are complicated mechanics behind bringing the ochi to life, Wolfhard says, but it all comes together to make the ochi appear like a real-life animal. 'The ochi had a whole team of people, and all the puppeteers are actors because they are all trying to get a very specific performance out of the ochi,' Wolfhard says. 'It was six people piloting one creature, as opposed to just one actor, but they were such amazing performers. That's why I like working with practical effects — it's so fun because you have that human connection with it.' Saxon says inspiration for the gremlins came in part from his longtime obsession with Chinese golden snub-nosed monkeys. He also took elements from lemurs, tarsiers and other primates for the look of the ochi, while borrowing from birdsong and the noises dolphins make for the language the animals use in the film. 'It wasn't looking to movie creatures or mythical creatures. It was looking to nature,' he says. 'I really wanted to pull from the wide variety of superpowers that you do find in nature, and real patterns in zoology, and put them into one fictional animal.' The cuteness factor for the baby ochi was important from the start, Saxon says. After drafting up several drawings of what the ochi would look like for the film, Saxon says he reached out to John Nolan Studios in London to create animatronics for the creatures. 'They made a prototype that was completely furless and had no facial movement, but immediately, the five puppeteers brought it to life, it was just completely convincing that this was a real being,' Saxon recalls. 'It was absolutely adorable from the break.' Saxon says designing the baby ochi as a puppet adds characteristics that play into how lovable the creature becomes throughout the film. 'A lot of the little imperfections that you might see in a baby primate trying to move learn how to move their own body, those are the types of little things that come through in rod puppeteering,' he says. 'So it had that vulnerability from the beginning, from the puppetry.' Once the crew was on set filming in Romania, 'there was a tremendous amount of effort in just like, policing his cuteness,' Saxon says of the baby ochi. He joked about a 'last-minute rhinoplasty' to make the baby's nose cuter after realizing it wasn't quite right, and other situations on set to ensure the creature had the look he was going for. The film, which launched in theaters in New York City and Los Angeles on April 17, is headed to theaters nationwide on April 25. But the hype for the charm of the baby ochi is only just beginning, as viewers start to react to the gremlin on social media. 'I just watched THE LEGEND OF OCHI and I want everyone to know that I would die for this little guy,' one user posted on X. 'I completely adored THE LEGEND OF OCHI. It pulls inspiration from Amblin movies like E.T., Jim Henson's classics, and even Ghibli, but still takes tons of *weird* swings that create its own identity full of wonder,' another X user wrote. 'They literally don't make family adventures like this anymore.' 'Just like 'E.T.' was for so many of my generation I hope there's a kid out there whose new favorite movie is THE LEGEND OF OCHI and it inspires them to become a filmmaker,' another X user posted. 'Lovely movie.' Another X user said: 'The Legend of Ochi is a wholesome fantasy adventure. It has really beautiful puppetry and practical effects that really make the Ochi come to life. You love every second baby Ochi is on screen. The world feels very beautiful and unique.' Others, understandably, were just reacting to finding out how adorable the baby ochi is. 'How have I not heard about this darling baby Ochi until today?' a user wrote on X, adding a teary-eyed emoji and two heart-eye emoji. 'In love with this little guy,' another X user said with a heart-eyed emoji. 'can't wait to see the movie!' 'Omg he's perfect,' another replied on X to a photo of the baby ochi puppet wearing a baseball cap. A24, the film's distributor, also joined in on the fun, posting a photo of the baby ochi with its arms raised with the caption, 'When you find out The Legend of Ochi isn't nationwide until next Friday but you need that little guy right now.' 'The Legend of Ochi' debuted in theatres on April 25.
