"We spend a lot of time and make sure the grammar is right," Matt Duffer, who created the Netflix phenomenon with his brother, tells THR about composing replies to King (who's a major inspiration).

Exchanging emails with an idol can be excruciating. Just ask the Duffer brothers.

Although they didn't say who reached out first, Matt and Ross Duffer — the brains behind Netflix's nostalgic thriller phenomenon Stranger Things, which returns for a second season on Oct. 27 — tell The Hollywood Reporter that they've been email buddies with the man who inspired them to do what they do.

"He tweeted about our show and we've exchanged some emails with him," Ross explains, referencing King's tweets, one of which praised the show as "pure fun" and "A+" with another sharp-tongued post that it's like "watching Steve King's Greatest Hits. I mean that in a good way."

"It still blows my mind because growing up he was such an inspiration — he’s like a god to us, and so, it’s been surreal just communicating with him at all," adds Ross.

He says that the brothers usually put their heads together when composing a reply. "We spend a lot of time and make sure the grammar is right. We ran the first email by our writers just to make sure it was good, like, we were very, very particular about it."

Adds Matt: "Is like this: A're we using a semicolon properly in this email?' And then he probably writes his email back to us in about five seconds, but he’s very, very sweet. He’s a very sweet guy."

A version of this story first appeared in the Sept. 27 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.