As 'Stranger Things' heads toward its final episodes, Cara Buono is reflecting on her journey as Karen Wheeler—from the show’s early days to her surprising Season 5 spotlight. The actress sat down with Metro to discuss trusting the Duffer Brothers’ long-term vision, filming her viral fight scene, and what the ending means for fans.
So in 2015, I got an audition in my email for a project called 'Montauk' at the time. I read the script and something clicked and I fell in love with it. It was based on a government facility there that had a lot of intrigue and mystery that the Duffer Brothers were basing it on. And it was just an instinct, it was just a feeling. I love the writing, I love sci-fi and I love talking to the Duffers. So it just felt like something I wanted to be part of.
While I was never part of the action, I was just happy to be part of such a good story in a show. When I first read the scripts, I was very surprised. I remember a conversation I had with the Duffers where they said, 'No, Karen's going to play an important role' — and I just never knew what it was.
Any good showrunner, all the best showrunners of the shows you love, they know the ending of the show when they start it and when they pitch it. So they always had the ending in mind, they always knew how Karen was going to be part of the lore of ‘Stranger Things.’ For me as an actor, I was just excited to be part of a fight scene. To me, it was a nod to Ripley in ‘Aliens.’ I even wanted to do a couple takes where I say, 'Stay away from her, you b*tch', as a nod to her.
I remember on ‘Mad Men’, it was sort of the dawn of when you're on a show and then people on Twitter were going to start talking about it—and I didn't get it. I said, well, who wants to talk about this? When Don Draper broke up with my character and everyone was really upset about it, the memes were fun to [see.] The fans recreate the scenes or come up with funny things about it.
There's a viral ‘Stranger Things’ one going around where it says other people when they see the Demagorgon and they're running away, and then it says Karen Wheeler, and they have a wine bottle and they run towards it. People get really creative with it, and I enjoy it, it's fun. Some of it is really funny. I love the ones where people are filming themselves, their reactions to watching it. Those are hilarious.
The whole fight scene is choreographed. They have something called a Previs now, it's an animated video of how they want it to look, which helps everyone have a vision of what their job is. Our head of stunts Hiro (Koda) is excellent, and we just talk through all of the steps and the stages and how it was going to be broken up. There are many steps, and it takes a whole week to just shoot a little bit.
And with the stabbing part, it could be a hanging ball that you're stabbing at, or like a cutout board with some give to it. With that, as opposed to just stabbing the air when she has a wine bottle, it's landing. You have to sort of see the element of her pulling it out. So I would stab this board, it would get stuck and there'd be some give to it.
I've really loved what they've done with Will's character, and Noah (Schnapp) has been given a very challenging role that I think is really underappreciated. If you think about how young he was when he had to portray being possessed by Vecna, he would have to do all this physical acting. And in this season as well, his character goes through so much. I'm so impressed with him, the youngest, and I love watching his character evolve. I can't wait for people to see what else comes in the next few episodes for him.
And the moments that I cherish the most go back to Season 1 when we were making a show that no one knew about. We all just had a job we were doing and we loved and we thought people would like it. And those are the moments that stand out for me the most when I look back.
It's so great. I think everyone should go see it on the big screen because having seen the first two episodes on a big screen at the premieres was amazing. Everything's better in the theater, I’m so excited for fans who have tickets.
I still feel incredibly lucky to do this. One thing about the Duffers, they love kids and they've said childhood is magical.
To me, being on a show like ‘Stranger Things’ is being a child—you get to pretend and you get to imagine and wonder and play. The play part is really appealing to me. So I think each fan has an individual intimate relationship with the show, and they're all going to find the right ending for themselves in it.
‘Stranger Things’ Volume 2 will release on Christmas (with three episodes), and The Finale will release on New Year’s Eve at 8 p.m. ET
