Being a good teacher can go a long way — and in the case of Hope Hynes Love, it landed her on one of Netflix’s most-watched shows of all time.
‘Stranger Things’ creators cast former teacher in new role
The new season of “Stranger Things” is tense: Hawkins is under military quarantine, Holly Wheeler is missing and Demogorgons abound.
Holly’s elementary school teacher, Miss Harris, offers one of the few bright spots in Season 5 (so far) as she cares for her students and does her best to protect them at the military base during a battle scene with Vecna and the demogorgons.
It turns out the real-life story behind Miss Harris’ role is even more heartwarming.
After the Season 5 premiere, “Stranger Things” creators Ross and Matt Duffer revealed that Love, who plays Miss Harris, was their high school drama teacher.
“High school was rough for me and my brother. But Hope saw something in us we didn’t see in ourselves — and she helped give us the confidence to not only survive those four years, but to move to LA and chase our dreams,“ Ross Duffer recently shared in an Instagram post.
“Shoutout to all the teachers out there making a difference,” he continued. “And please… let’s prioritize the arts in schools."
For Love, who taught the Duffer Brothers at C.E. Jordan High School in Durham, North Carolina, the acknowledgement from her former students has meant “everything,” she told Netflix’s Tudum.
“I’ve said it to them, but what a blast to collaborate again and have it flipped around,” she said to WRAL News, which is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. “It takes a certain amount of trust, that actor, director thing, and they trusted me like (I trusted them) when they were my students.”
Casting Miss Harris on ‘Stranger Things’
Love has remained in touch with the Duffer Brothers since they graduated from high school.
When Season 4 of “Stranger Things” came out, the teacher reached out to her former students to praise their work on the show.
“They’re like, ‘Oh, thank you so much. We actually thought we had a cameo for you in (Season 4), but it didn’t work out. We had to cut it,’” Love recalled in an interview with Netflix’s Tudum. “And I looked at my husband, and I was like, ‘Yeah, how nice are they? This is a lovely lie. They’re so gracious.’”
But to her surprise, the Duffers later approached her and asked if she’d be interested in taking a small role for Season 5. Love told them she hadn’t really done much camera work since grad school and that maybe she should go through the audition process.
But the role was hers. The Duffer Brothers put her in touch with the casting director to set things in motion.
“I actually had to take my own advice, which is the worst and best thing as a teacher,” Love told Netflix’s Tudum. “I was like, ‘OK, you have this opportunity. You better get to work.’”
On set, Love enjoyed reconnecting with Matt and Ross Duffer and working under their direction. It meant the world to her, she said, that they thought to include her in a globally popular show that has become a cultural phenomenon.
“You always want your students to look back on their time with you as a valuable use of their youth. That the things that they invested in you and your program have served them well,” she told Netflix’s Tudum.
“It’s lovely when they reach back and go, ‘I’m doing this cool thing. Do you want to come see if you think it’s cool?’” she continued. “And I’m like, ‘Absolutely.’ Why would that change just because you’re not 16 anymore, and you’re 30? Yes, I want to come see your cool thing. Isn’t that the deal between us?”
When do new episodes of ‘Stranger Things’ hit Netflix?
Netflix will release the next three episodes of “Stranger Things” Season 5 (Volume 2) on Christmas Day at 6 p.m. MST, as the Deseret News previously reported.
The final episode — “The Rightside Up” — concludes a show that premiered nearly a decade ago. It will hit Netflix and play in select theaters starting at 6 p.m. MST on New Year’s Eve.
“The last 30 minutes of it are pretty clear in our heads,” Ross Duffer told Entertainment Weekly long before production on Season 5 began. “So if we can make the journey entertaining, I think that we have an end that will hopefully satisfy. You can’t satisfy everyone, but the hope is that it’s something that feels right for this story.”