Continuing HN Entertainment’s interview with actor Jake Busey, Nicholas Whitcomb asked him about how he got involved with the third season of Netflix’s Stranger Things as a new trailer dropped online earlier in the day that we spoke with him.

Jake reveals that he auditioned for the series without knowing he had even read for it and was completely shocked when his agent explained to him they wanted him to come in for a second time.

HN: Moving on, it’s pretty big that you’re going to be part of the new season of Stranger Things on Netflix. I don’t want to get into spoilers because I know you can’t really talk about them for obvious reasons, but I just wanted to ask how did that project come to you and how familiar were you with the show?

BUSEY: “Oh, yes sir!”

“I was certainly a big fan of the show and being an actor there are a lot of shows I watch and I think to myself: ‘You know, I’d love to do that but those people aren’t going to hire little old me on this show’. That’s really only for the kids, you know, I’m just not cool enough to be on a show that great. Like Game of Thrones or, of course, Stranger Things.”

“It was during TV pilot season when I auditioned, so there are so many auditions in a short amount of time and it’s hard to keep track of all the information/lines since most of the time the thing you’re auditioning for doesn’t get picked up or you don’t even get hired. Some of the times they air, there is a lot of potential for nothing to come out of these auditions. But, my audition for Stranger Things was slammed in between three weeks worth of auditions. I got a call from my agent and he said: ‘Good news, Stranger Things wants you to come back in, they really like you’ and I was like: ‘Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, you mean I read for Stranger Things?’. I was doing so many auditions I don’t pay attention to the title of the show I just look at the street address and the time, I was just blown away.”

“So, I went back in and had a meeting with Carmen [the casting director] and we read the scene a couple of times and she got me to do a much better performance than I had done the first time around. I think the first time around I didn’t have time to devote time to studying it or whatever. Clearly, they knew I was capable but I just didn’t really deliver in the first audition and then I ended up booking the job after that. I couldn’t really believe it was happening, I was so surprised and blown away”

Jake also talks about how when it was announced he had joined the show he discovered a new level of attention as he was flying to shoot Stranger Things, the press release dropped and the news exploded all over the internet/social media.

HN: Yeah, I can imagine getting that call back would be crazy.

BUSEY: “I’m really thankful that they brought me onto the show and I really had a good time, to have my friend Cary Elwes be cast and we flew out together. As we were flying to film it the rest of the world was told we were on the show. I’ve been doing this for a long time, we didn’t have social media and cell phones, when you got on a plane you were isolated. Then this news came out in a newspaper and people would read it, but to have social media the two of us are on the plane and all this news is hitting, they hit the press release and every news outlet picked it up. And Cary goes: ‘Look at this we’re trending #2 in the UK’. It was huge and the phone was blowing up and then we went filmed it.”

“It was one of those moments when I was asking people to pinch me.”

HN: Netflix actually dropped a trailer for it earlier this morning and I just watched it and we get a glimpse of your character.

BUSEY: “Absolutely, it’s kind of amazing to see the response of my phone blowing up all day. It’s really from every other show I’ve done.”

Jake also reiterated some previous information about his character Bruce, a foul-mouthed journalist that works at The Hawkins Post.

HN: I don’t know how much you can say but is there any you can talk about your character?

BUSEY: “I believe what I’m allowed to say is that he is a journalist and he has a sick sense of humor. I think that sick sense of humor wouldn’t really fly today, but the show takes place in 1985. His sick sense of humor is just politically correct. It was a great role and great show to be part of and we’re really not allowed to talk about it, we will be soon.”

We’ll have more from our interview with Jake over the next couple of days.

Stranger Things will be released on Netflix on July 4th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEG3bmU_WaI