According to The Mirror, the upcoming Stranger Things spin-off Tales from '85 will feature an entirely new cast, with none of the original series' stars returning to reprise their roles. The prequel-adjacent project represents a clean slate — and a massive casting conversation waiting to happen.
A Whole New Hawkins to Fill
For fans of the original series, the news is equal parts exciting and daunting. The Duffer Brothers built one of the most beloved ensemble casts in modern television, so the pressure on Tales from '85 to find performers who can carry that same emotional weight is enormous. Set in the mid-80s and untethered from the original timeline's older cast, the spin-off opens the door to fresh faces embodying familiar archetypes — the scrappy outcast, the fierce maternal figure, the gruff-but-tender authority figure — without being directly compared to Millie Bobby Brown or David Harbour scene-for-scene.
The real question for myCast users isn't just who gets cast, but which character energy matters most. Does Tales from '85 need its own version of Eleven? Its own Hopper? Or does it forge something genuinely new within the Stranger Things universe?
What myCast Fans Are Already Saying
The myCast community has been dreaming about Stranger Things casting for years, and the data tells a fascinating story. Over on the most active fan-cast story, Stranger Things — which boasts 38 roles and 15 total votes — the most telling result involves Eleven. Fans have cast Ariana Grande in the grown-up version of the role with 5 votes, making her the single most-voted pick across the entire story. That's a genuinely bold choice that says something about what fans want: star power, emotional range, and someone who can command a scene without saying a word.
For the younger versions of the core group, fans have leaned toward the original actors themselves — Millie Bobby Brown leads young Eleven with 3 votes, Finn Wolfhard holds down young Mike Wheeler, and Gaten Matarazzo gets the nod for young Dustin. It's a sweet instinct, but Tales from '85 throwing out the original cast entirely means this conversation has to evolve fast.