Dacre Montgomery On Returning To Billy for ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4

Stranger Things co-star Dacre Montgomery knew that the Duffer Brothers, the minds behind the throwback Netflix smash, wanted to bring back his 2-season character Billy Hargrove in last year’s massive fourth season. Possessed by season three’s Mind Flayer, Montgomery’s Billy spent much of the season doing very bad things. It’s not until the end of the season where Billy shakes off his possession thanks to help from Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown). He then sacrifices himself to protect others and dies after apologizing to his sister Max (Sadie Sink) for the harm he’d caused.

It’s that connection with Max that the Duffer Brothers used to bring Billy back into season four. The season focuses on new baddie Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) who seeks to weaken Max by leveraging her lingering guilt over the death of her brother. In fact, she sees visions of her brother while trapped in Vecna’s world.

And that’s how Dacre Montgomery returned to Stranger Things and, in the process, became the series’s sole submission for the 2023  Emmy season in Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series.

“I knew that they wanted to figure out a way to weave him back into the storyline, especially for Sadie’s character, Max. But I was even more surprised when obviously the pandemic was happening,” Montgomery shared over the phone while filming in New Zealand. “I was in Australia, and it was very difficult at the time to get out of Oz and into the US and then back into Australia. So there was a point where I was going to try and have to figure it out, but the Duffer Brothers actually were sort of kind enough to say they’d make it happen in Oz.”

The team arranged for Montgomery to film his new scenes in his home of Perth in Western Australia. They shipped in a wig and prosthetics and arranged for set construction to accommodate the needs of the scene. Director Shawn Levy then zoomed in on an iPad to direct Montgomery and orient him within the context of the scene, half of which Montgomery had thanks to Sink’s pre-recorded lines. Sink’s stand-in for the scene to align the eyelines properly became a tennis ball.

Stranger things indeed.

“It was an incredibly unique experience, but nice to do it at home. I’ve never really worked in Australia other than working on Elvis during the pandemic,” Montgomery said. “So not only was I in Oz, but I was home in Perth, which is just so rare for me. So many of the local crew were from Perth, so it was actually a really nice opportunity to be at home and work at home.”

When revisiting Billy, Montgomery pulled from past experiences to re-create the character. Even though this Billy is a Vecna manifestation, he’s still pulled from Max’s thoughts, memories, and feelings, so he needed to feel grounded in a way that aligned with the previous seasons. Montgomery and Sink originally bonded through their Season Two introduction — their first scene on the series was together — so they had brief conversations about the scene to help each other get into character despite the challenges imposed by the pandemic.

Now at work on a film in New Zealand with Vicky Krieps, Montgomery literally can’t say whether or not Billy will ever return to the Stranger Things universe. Not because he isn’t allowed to but because he literally doesn’t know.

At least, he won’t say if there have been any new calls from the Duffer Brothers.

“There’s nothing that I can talk about as of yet. But as you know, I’m in New Zealand, and there’s a writer’s strike going on, so I’m not hiding anything,” Montgomery laughed. “It has been such an honor to have been a part of the show and work with some phenomenally talented cast. I’m excited to sort of see how Season Five comes together. It’s gonna be great.”

Stranger Things streams in its entirety exclusively on Netflix.