‘Stranger Things’ Star Dacre Montgomery Reveals Why He Took an Acting Hiatus After Show’s Success

Dacre Montgomery is opening up about acting post-Stranger Things.

In a recent interview with People magazine, Montgomery reflects on how his breakout role as Billy Hargrove in the popular Netflix series “pushed” him in a “commercial direction” and led him to take an acting hiatus after his character’s (Spoiler Alert!) death in the season three finale in 2019.

“I think with Stranger Things — as any big show on Netflix — it’s kind of like you lose your anonymity overnight,” he said. “It was amazing and overwhelming and a combination of many things, and I felt really lucky and really fortunate to have that opportunity.”

He continued to explain what he learned about his career goals from the show. “I grew up really wanting to work with all tour directors on arthouse films and really explore how far I can push myself in terms of character development and really, really fall in love with stories. And when Stranger Things came out, I felt like … I was really being pushed in a commercial direction.”

That direction led him to “take time to step back” to figure out what projects he wanted to focus on moving forward. Outside of appearing in Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 box office hit and Oscar-nominated film, Elvis, Montgomery has focused on acting in indie films.

“That sort of stuff takes time to kind of reverse engineer a career that’s going one way into a different direction,” he said. “It takes time, and I can’t just generate a story, an amazing story [and] an amazing director in front of my eyes.”

Montgomery said his new horror/fantasy film, Went Up the Hill, is “exactly the thing I want to be doing,” and he wants to work on projects that have “something really important to say.”

“Now I kind of feel like I’m in a really, really good space with a couple of great movies coming up that fit the bill…  in terms of where I wanted to be,” he said.

Went Up the Hill is now playing in select theaters.