There was a major absence at the 2022 Emmy Awards [1] on 12 September: the cast of "Stranger Things [2]." Sadie Sink, Millie Bobby Brown, Natalia Dyer, David Harbour, Winona Ryder [3], and the rest of the Hawkins gang totally skipped the red carpet and ceremony even though the show was nominated for outstanding drama series. Here's what we know about why they decided to skip television's biggest night.
"Stranger Things" season four was nominated for 13 awards [4] this year, but the entire cast ended up being snubbed in the acting categories. Fans were outraged, especially when it came to the powerhouse performances of Sink, Brown, and Caleb McLaughlin. "Stranger Things" executive producer Shawn Levy even addressed the snubs on the Emmys red carpet, telling E! News [5] they were "ridiculous and unjust."
"All of our actors did amazing work this season," he said. "But this season was really built to a large extent around the two female character pillars, Eleven and Max. Both Millie and Sadie stepped up and delivered career high performances, and I'm just looking ahead to the upcoming award season and the Guild awards to properly recognise the exceptional work that these two young actresses did."
It's not clear if the cast decided to skip because of the snubs, since no one has spoken out about their decision yet. But we do know some of the cast's whereabouts Monday night. Sink was still at the Toronto International Film Festival, promoting her new movie "The Whale." Grace Van Dien, who plays Chrissy, was also at TIFF [6] on Monday. Dyer was photographed at New York Fashion Week. Gaten Matarazzo, who's currently performing in "Dear Evan Hansen" on Broadway, attended the Mets game [7] in Queens. McLaughlin posted three days ago that he had just wrapped [8] an upcoming Lee Daniels-directed exorcism film for Netflix. Harbour was in Anaheim on Saturday as Marvel announced [9] his new movie "Thunderbolts," but apparently still decided not to head over to the award show.
Though we missed out on a cast reunion Monday night, we've still seen a lot of them together this summer. In late July, Sadie Sink and Maya Hawke surprised Gaten Matarazzo [10] on his opening night in "Dear Evan Hansen." "Just to see them there was like the icing on the cake. They were just so ecstatic for me. It just almost made me very, very emotional," Matarazzo told POPSUGAR in July. Joseph Quinn and Grace Van Dien [11], who play Eddie and Chrissy, also took a sweet selfie together in August at a fan event. And Jamie Campbell Bower, Eduardo Franco, and Quinn all met up at the MTV Movie and TV Awards [12] in June.
Before Monday night's ceremony, "Stranger Things" took home awards for stunt coordination, prosthetic makeup [13], sound editing, sound mixing, and music supervision (yes, for using "Running Up That Hill" [14]).
