Add to the quality list of Netflix series — Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, and Bloodline — Stranger Things, an eight-episode series that is a love letter to science fiction and horror films from the ’80s, which has had an overwhelming appeal to viewers.
Stranger Things has resonated with audiences — possibly because of its nostalgia — but also because of its star Winona Ryder, who actually became a star in such memorable ’80s movies as Beetlejuice and Heathers.
“This was something that I felt up for,” Ryder told Parade.com in a round table interview at the Television Critics Association in Beverly Hills. “It was definitely challenging, but I thought it was a great role. I really wanted to explore, not [the grief], but … usually the “mom” roles you are offered are very much the mom role. Like literally standing in the doorway, wearing fluffy slippers, [saying], ‘Oh, you kids!’ This was different because she was much more than just something to service the plot, so it was a really great opportunity.”
Stranger Things is set in 1983 Indiana, where a young boy Will (Noah Schnapp) vanishes into thin air. Ryder plays his chain-smoking mother, Joyce Byers, who deals with the grief of her loss as she also tries to take care of her old son Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), keep her horrible ex at bay, and finally, and, most importantly, search out the truth of what happened to Will.
“I had a lot of compassion for Joyce even before the first scene where everything starts,” Ryder says. “She wasn’t perfect, and I appreciated that. She was complicated. She was struggling. I think she carried around a lot of guilt that she was leaning on her older son a lot. But she was like a lot of women I know, who are just really good people and just trying the best they can to get by. So I appreciated her flaws. She was complicated and there was nothing cookie cutter or perfect about her.”
The plot of Stranger Things thickens as friends, family, and local police search for answers, and are drawn into an extraordinary mystery involving top-secret government experiments, terrifying supernatural forces and one very strange little girl (Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven), who has supernatural powers.
“I actually think my character reacts completely appropriately to the situation, which was both incredibly unimaginable in terms of the grief but also completely bizarre in terms of what was happening,” Ryder says. “I can’t imagine what else she would do or what any parent would do.”
Despite only being 11 in 1983, as part of her research for the role, Ryder says she re-watched old Marsha Mason movies, because she was a powerhouse, as well as Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, because its star Ellen Burstyn was both heartbreaking and human.
“It [1983] was a very big year for me because I was learning a lot about what was happening in the world and getting more involved,” Ryder says.”My parents sheltered me before then, and then thought, ‘Okay, she is ready,’ because I was very curious. I would always read the paper with them, and then I started wanting to read it on my own. I remember it being a pivotal year for me in terms of what I started to care about. Things just seemed very real.”
All eight episodes of Stranger Things are currently streaming on Netflix.
View the original at Parade or follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Google+