Finn Wolfhard Drops Solo Album After Stranger Things
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Finn Wolfhard is preparing to release his second solo album, Fire From the Hip, a tuneful rock record in a Beatlesy, 90s indie vein that he records on physical tape rather than digitally; he has been making music longer than he has been acting, with his mother buying him his first guitar at age four and prior stints in Canadian bands Calpurnia and the Aubreys.
- Stranger Things concluded at the end of last year after roughly a decade, with the final season filmed over about a year in Atlanta — Wolfhard shared a house with Gaten Matarazzo during production and described the cast living in the same neighborhood, saying the ending was "pretty depressing for everyone" but "absolutely right."
- Wolfhard landed the Stranger Things audition at age 12 after picking up bit parts in music videos and local TV, inspired by watching his older brother Nick perform in a school play; he says the cast wasn't a group of "actor kids," which he believes is why they were cast in the first place.
- Wolfhard says his on-screen kiss with Millie Bobby Brown in Stranger Things season one was effectively his first real kiss, telling the interviewer he wasn't nervous because "it's part of character"; Brown has previously said the same scene was her first kiss as well.
- Wolfhard cites his artsy Vancouver upbringing — mother a visual artist, father a screenwriter working in human rights — for his fluency in the show's 80s references like E.T., Stand By Me and The Goonies, and he now has nearly 25 million Instagram followers.
- Wolfhard has built out a post-Stranger Things filmography including the two Ghostbusters reboots (Afterlife and Frozen Empire), both parts of the Stephen King adaptation It, The Goldfinch opposite Nicole Kidman, and When You Finish Saving the World alongside Julianne Moore — the last of which featured original songs he had composed.
Why it matters: Wolfhard, now 23, has spent roughly a third of his life on a single Netflix franchise whose cast became the benchmark teens of their era, and his deliberate pivot to a lo-fi indie-rock career — backed by a built-in audience of nearly 25 million Instagram followers — shows how former child stars are increasingly choosing creative control over further franchise work.
Ask SkimNews
