Stranger Things’ Joseph Quinn: 5 Things to Know About the Actor Playing Eddie Munson

Credit: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Stranger Things’ Joseph Quinn: 5 Things to Know About the Actor Playing Eddie Munson

Rock n' roll, baby! Joseph Quinn plays metalhead and Dungeons & Dragons extraordinaire Eddie Munson on the upcoming season of Netflix’s Stranger Things — a role he sees as an essential addition to the show's depiction of 1980s culture. “He’s an 80s metalhead, he’s a Dungeon Master, he’s head of the Hellfire Club, which is the official Dungeons & Dragons club at Hawkins High,” the England native, 29, said to Collider about his character Eddie Munson earlier this month. “He’s really in and amongst all of the crazy stuff that I can’t talk about this season.” Eddie may be a new addition to part 4 of the Netflix hit, which premieres May 27, but he’s also a representation of the show's biggest themes. The rocker is a symbol for the “satanic panic” that took hold of the decade after the public became obsessed with equating anything from rock music to fantasy games with the worship of the devil. “It was really kind of an interesting time,” the Game of Thrones alum told Inverse magazine in May about the research he did into the period. “Heavy metal really stands in the face of rusty American values. And it's very kind of it's a real stark contrast. I think it must have been kind of crazy. I think it's really explored very brilliantly in this season.” [sendtonews type="float" key="UgOJfuzKKu-2841822-14453"] Season 4 of the science fiction drama picks up less than a year after season 3 ends and follows the fractured Hawkins gang as they attempt to deal with the horrors of high school. The Byers family (Winona Ryder, Charlie Heaton and Noah Schnapp) and a powerless Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) remain thousands of miles away in California as those left behind — including Mike (Finn Wolfard), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Max (Sadie Sink), Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Steven (Joe Keery) face a new threat from the Upside Down. The Duffer Brothers, who called season 4 of Stranger Things their “Game of Thrones season" during an interview with Collider in April, cast Quinn after he portrayed Koner on the HBO fantasy series in 2018. The actor, who gets directly thrown into the show’s biggest storyline, agreed with the director duo that the newest installment of the supernatural thriller matches GOT in terms of scope. "Some of the stuff that we got to do … I can't talk about, [but] was great,” he told Entertainment Weekly earlier this month. “There was one sequence in the woods. It was a night shoot. We got there and the whole forest was lit up. It was so thrilling. There's some sequences in it that are just — going to be massive, I think." Scroll below to learn more about the newest Stranger Things actor: [podcast_block]

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1. What Have You Seen Him Before?

Quinn portrayed Arthur Havisham on the BBC One series, Dickensian in 2016, telling Nuit Magazine at the time that he enjoyed performing in period pieces because there is something “timeless about the human experience.”

“You see people wearing these weird clothes and speaking differently to how we speak but it’s the same stuff, a different day,” he told the outlet. “People fall in love, people get angry and people get jealous. I guess it's how predictable we are. Maybe we find comfort in that. The costumes are gorgeous and the scenery tends to be nice. It makes for very appealing viewing."

The actor also made guest appearances on Game of Thrones in 2018 and HBO’s Catherine The Great in 2019, working alongside Helen Mirren — an experience he referred to as an “immense privilege.”

Credit: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

2. Where Did He Study Acting?

The England native studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before graduating in 2015. The prestigious school's roster also includes Daniel Sharman, Iwan Rheon, David Oyelowo, Stephen Moyer, Rose Leslie, Ruth Wilson and Donald Sutherland.

Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

3. If He Could Portray Any Character, Who Would it Be?

In an October 2019 interview with The Rakish Gent, Quinn revealed he would have loved to play the role of Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) on HBO’s Succession.

“Kieran Culkin’s character is a goldmine and he just delivers every line and knocks it out of the park,” the actor said of the role at the time. “His sense of humor and lightness of touch with that character is enviable. But I think these iconic roles are so defined by the actors that played them it's hard to imagine anyone else playing them."

He added “all of the characters in the Lord of the Rings trilogy” to the wish list in an interview with Glass Magazine one month later.

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4. Does He Have Social Media?

“I don’t have Facebook, I used to but I just spent all my time looking at other people’s lives,” the actor told Nuit Magazine in 2016. “I don’t have Instagram [either]. I find it an incredibly image-centric medium that devalues the use of words.”

Quinn added that while he does have Twitter, “I wouldn’t say I use it in a professional capacity – selling myself online. It’s a useful tool for news and seeing what other people are up to. Some people say some funny stuff on it. It can be mentally useful, but it’s also a useful tool for people to communicate.”

Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

5. How Does He Feel About Joining Stranger Things?

While Quinn described the experience as “daunting” in a May 2022 interview with Entertainment Tonight, he added that the cast are “really nice people, and it was everything you’d expect." from the experience. “It’s a good thing to go somewhere strange with a bunch of strangers and leave that place with really dear friends,” he added about his time on set.

Later that month, the actor explained the pressure he felt as a late-stage newcomer to do his character and the honor that comes with being part of a television series that is so beloved.

“There's a lot of devotion towards this show, and you don't want to ruin it,” he told Collider at the time. “So it's been an amazing experience. It's been surreal to be involved in something like this. It's just a huge honor, and to be able to participate in this season, and be amongst everyone trying to pull it off, it's a treat.”