Dacre Montgomery said he took a hiatus from acting after his breakout role in Stranger Things as played Billy Hargrove.
In an interview with People, he shared that the success of the series was overwhelming, to say the least. “I think with Stranger Things — as any big show on Netflix — it’s kind of like you lose your anonymity overnight.”
“It was amazing and overwhelming and a combination of many things, and I felt really lucky and really fortunate to have that opportunity,” the star added.
But the actor noted the Netflix show pushed his career in a direction he wasn’t initially interested in.
“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,” the 30-year-old noted.
“And when Stranger Things came out, I felt like … I was really being pushed in a commercial direction,” he said.
Following the Netflix series, Dacre said he “took time to step back” to figure out what projects he should be doing. “That sort of stuff takes time to kind of reverse engineer a career that’s going one way into a different direction.“
“It takes time, and I can’t just generate a story, an amazing story [and] an amazing director in front of my eyes,” he noted.
Besides Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, Dacre said he is more interested in appearing in indie movies.
Stranger Things season five, volume one, will be out on November 26.
