{"id":130387,"date":"2025-09-09T04:35:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T04:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/130387\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T04:35:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T04:35:06","slug":"after-stranger-things-dacre-montgomery-retreated-from-stardom-then-came-a-part-he-couldnt-say-no-to-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/130387\/","title":{"rendered":"After Stranger Things, Dacre Montgomery retreated from stardom. Then came a part he couldn\u2019t say no to | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two years after Stranger Things<\/a> transformed the Australian actor Dacre Montgomery into an overnight heart-throb at 22, he retreated home to Perth. From there he said no to every role that came his way for four years, bar a season-four cameo and a small part in Baz Luhrmann\u2019s Elvis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lost my anonymity overnight and it scared the shit out of me,\u201d Montgomery, now 30, says. He speaks fast and taps the table in time with those last words, a brimmed cap sitting low over his face. \u201cThat was a big driving force for stepping back.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re in a Sydney bar on a quiet Wednesday in the lead-up to the release of Went Up the Hill \u2013 an icy possession drama set in New Zealand\u2019s Southern Alps by the Australian writer-director Samuel van Grinsven. It stars Montgomery alongside Phantom Thread\u2019s Vicky Krieps as a pair of strangers whose relationship grows increasingly antic as they mourn a mutual relative.<\/p>\n

Montgomery stars alongside Vicky Krieps in Went Up the Hill. Photograph: Kirsty Griffin<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first of a series of anticipated films starring Montgomery, including a remake of the 70s mondo horror Faces of Death, alongside Barbie Ferreira and Charli xcx, as well as Gus van Sant\u2019s Dead Man\u2019s Wire, a true-crime thriller about the 1977 kidnapping of a mortgage broker that premiered at Venice to glowing reviews<\/a>. It\u2019s a sharp reversal from a few years ago, when his frustrated Hollywood agent dropped him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI needed to stop and recalibrate,\u201d he says. \u201cI also [knew] that I wanted more and I had more to give.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montgomery\u2019s ascent didn\u2019t allow for contemplation. He landed his first major role \u2013 leading 2017\u2019s unsuccessful Power Rangers film reboot \u2013 before he finished his acting degree at the prestigious Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts.<\/p>\n

Though a four-film deal disappeared after Power Rangers\u2019 meagre box office take, it didn\u2019t matter. Months later hundreds of millions of Netflix<\/a> subscribers tuned into Stranger Things\u2019 second season starring Montgomery as Billy Hargrove, Hawkins\u2019 mulleted bad boy lifeguard and eventual literal demon.<\/p>\n

Brooding, handsome and evil, Montgomery\u2019s live-wire performance captured a passionate fanbase \u2013 the type that meant he could get a quarter of a million likes on a low-res Instagram post<\/a> of a blue-black gradient shared to more than 7 million followers. The attention was overwhelming but Montgomery also questioned where his career was heading.<\/p>\n

Dacre Montgomery as Billy in Stranger Things. Photograph: Netflix\/Courtesy of Netflix<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong, I love commercial films,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I grew up watching auteur films. I wanted characters that challenged me to the greatest extent.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the wake of Stranger Things, those characters didn\u2019t come. \u201cSo I waited. And waited. And waited.\u201d<\/p>\n

With commercial and endorsement work steady, Montgomery experimented. He released a beat-inspired poetry podcast and book, both titled DKMH (after his full name, Dacre Kaye Montgomery-Harvey), and directed a handful of high-concept short films, ranging from sci-fi<\/a> to viscerally violent works<\/a> about motherhood.<\/p>\n

But he credits his return to Went Up the Hill, in which he plays Jack, a young queer man who arrives in New Zealand to attend the funeral of his estranged abusive mother, Elizabeth, and meets her wife, Jill (Krieps), for the first time. They cloister themselves in Elizabeth\u2019s house as her spirit possesses each of their bodies. The presence is welcome but menacing, as Jack and Jill try to understand her abuse without falling victim to it again.<\/p>\n

Montgomery was instantly drawn to the acting challenge of a \u201cthree-hander told by two people\u201d, as well as the script\u2019s exploration of inherited trauma.<\/p>\n

Montgomery was drawn to the acting challenge of a \u2018three-hander told by two people\u2019. Photograph: Kirsty Griffin<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mum had really bad postnatal depression when I was born,\u201d he says. \u201cI think a lot of my anxieties come from that. So it feels a part of me, in a weird way.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then, in some ways, my anxiety is the fire that fuels my ambition or my work ethic. It\u2019s part of me, her trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Grinsven says Montgomery was cast because of his \u201cdangerous\u201d onscreen presence. It\u2019s the same intensity he exudes his viral Stranger Things audition<\/a>, in which he dances shirtless to Come on Eileen between scenes, though comments focus more on his intense stare \u2013 also the subject of many TikTok videos<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cHe feels like he could explode at any moment,\u201d Van Grinsven says. \u201cAnd coupled with how beautifully raw and sensitive he is as a real person, that together felt really interesting to me in a film [about] the abused welcoming an abuser into their body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shot on location at Flock Hill Lodge, a five-star resort overlooking Lake Pearson that hadn\u2019t yet opened, the cast and crew were incredibly isolated \u2013 and cold. Pulling from New Zealand\u2019s rich cinema of unease, the mountainous landscape is as haunted as the lodge, a gorgeous outpost of concrete, glass and wood creaking in the wind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI liken it to The Shining, right?\u201d Montgomery says. \u201cI would have nightmares all night, so I didn\u2019t sleep the whole production \u2026 We were all going crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Montgomery struggled to shake the film until its premiere last September at Toronto international film festival. \u201cI just bawled my eyes out the whole film, because there\u2019s so much of me and Vicky in there. I felt like I shed it that night. I was like, \u2018I\u2019m done. I never have to watch the film again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, the floodgates opened. In addition to his upcoming acting credits, Montgomery is also aiming to shoot his directorial feature debut The Engagement Party this year in Western Australia.<\/p>\n

Penned by Went Up the Hill\u2019s co-writer Jory Anast, it\u2019s a relationship drama about two couples on a remote holiday who are forced to examine a murky shared memory. \u201cI\u2019m brimming with ideas, and a lot of the heads of department we have on board are like, \u2018Woah, you\u2019re intense. You\u2019re a lot,\u201d he says, laughing. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018What are you gonna do?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n