Matthew Modine Says His 'Stranger Things' Role Made Him Sick to His Stomach

At a few points over the last six years, Matthew Modine was sitting in a sauna hoping to sweat every ounce of Stranger Things' megalomaniac evil genius, Dr. Martin Brenner, out of his body. The heart-racing fear of a Demogorgon leaping towards him, the sadistic pleasure of torturing telekinetic children, and the adrenaline rush of arguing his version of reality into Eleven's head never left when the director yelled "cut!"

Dr. Brenner wasn't simply a role he played; it was skin he stepped into and never wants to return to.

"Your body doesn’t know it’s acting. Even though I’m memorizing lines and I understand the physical aspects of acting, you put your body through whatever that character is going through," Modine tells Men's Health. "It can be very destructive to your body. I don’t ever want to get in the skin of someone like Dr. Brenner again."

As much as Modine detested subjecting his body to such an evil force, there was a love-hate relationship with the dictorial parental figure in Eleven and 001's life, because he helped create him. From the blinding white hair and Cary Grant-inspired pristine suit look to the idealism that eroded into dogma, Modine had a hand in building the prison he locked himself into for months at a time, and the show was better for it. In Stranger Things 4, Eleven doesn't regain her powers, and we aren't gifted with an epic climatic duel between her and Vecna, if Dr. Brenner doesn't reintroduce her to the trauma that awakened her abilities in the first place. He played God, created monsters, and internalized the failures of his "children" as his own, in part, because Modine temporarily accepted Brenner's twisted version of the truth as his own. That's enough to make any sane person want to wash away all remnants of that evil from their mind, fake or not.

With 40 years of acting credits under his belt, Modine is no stranger to giving life to deplorable men. In the classic Stanley Kubrick war film Full Metal Jacket, he plays conflicted soldier J. T. "Joker" Davis, who crosses the moral threshold into terror participant when he willingly gets involved in pummeling a fellow recruit with soap wrapped in blankets. Next year, we'll see him act in Christopher Nolan's J. Robert Oppenheimer biopic Oppenheimer as a key scientist in the United States' creation of an atomic bomb that devastated millions of lives. Modine's psyche will thankfully get a bit of a break in his upcoming film Hard Miles, a based-on-a-true-story film where he plays an inspirational cycling coach.

Until then, his mind still isn't rid of Dr. Brenner and Stranger Things theories and memories, for better or worse.

Men's Health: We initially thought Dr. Brenner died in Season 1, even though we didn’t see his dead body. In episode 8 of Season 4, Vol. 2, 'Papa,' we finally see Dr. Brenner sprawled across the desert ground bleeding out. Can you confirm he’s no longer alive?

Matthew Modine: I wish I had an answer for that. The Duffer Brothers were asked that question and said, ‘Brenner is no longer with us.’ Does that mean he’s dead? I don’t know. The fascinating thing about Brenner is not just that he survived the Demogorgon, but he also survived 001’s attack. He and Eleven were the only ones who were alive after that attack. It wasn’t just surviving one monster; he survived a second. The interesting thing to me was when Eleven regained her powers in episode 5 ["The Nina Project"] and began to escape. She dispatches three or four guards trying to stop her. Brenner shows up, and she tries to use her abilities against him. It doesn’t work, and Brenner says, ‘You didn’t think it’d be that easy. Did you?’ That’s fascinating to me because now I believe Brenner starts to enter into the realm of the supernatural, or perhaps he’s 000. But this is only existing in my imagination. The Duffers are very secretive about what they’re doing, and I respect that.

Before your return in Season 4, Vol. 1, we hadn't seen you since Season 2. What measures did The Duffer Brothers and Netflix put in place to not ruin the surprise of your return?

We all did our best to keep my participation private. With a show of this tremendous size and scope—there are thousands of people involved, from background performers, to the crew, to grocery store clerks, and flight attendants—there are so many ways for information to leak out. I drove across the country to avoid Covid and airports. Even then, my suspected participation began to leak out. It’s near impossible not to be seen today. Everyone has a video camera and the ability to share what they’re seeing globally. For good and bad.

What was the hardest scene for you to film?

The final scene with Millie and I, because of the great possibility that I wouldn’t be participating in the show anymore. Millie and I have known each other since she was 11 years old. I know from four decades of doing this job that some people you work with on a production are people you never see again after the production finishes. Our professional lives take us to different parts of the world. There are only a handful of people I’ve worked with that I’m still in contact with; David Alan Grier, from the first movie I did [1983’s Streamers]. That’s perhaps only because I asked him to be the godfather of my children. Eric Stoltz and Sean Astin are a few others. So, there’s the possibility that after Millie and I completed the final scene, that our friendship grows apart. And that’s really sad, but it’s one of the realities of the job.

How did playing Dr. Brenner affect you?

It made me sick to my stomach, especially during the scene when I tortured him for having harmed Eleven. It was very upsetting. It makes me sick to my stomach. I have a hard time separating, and I don’t like it.

What did you do afterward to separate yourself from Dr. Brenner?

I cut my hair off when I’m finished. I went into a lot of saunas to sweat this guy out [LAUGHS].

The most famous character I played was Private Joker from Full Metal Jacket. What I understood about Joker, and how I decided to play him, began with the first line: ‘Is that you, John Wayne? Is this me?’ The Joker understood the game he was in and the role of playing a soldier. He understood the pretense of the facade of war culture. But he lied about his acceptance of that game. He lied to the drill instructor, saying, ‘You want me to be this guy? This is how I’m going to survive in this situation? I can lie.’ He wanted to remain objective in looking at boot camp and war. But then he suddenly found himself in positions where he had to accept the role he was playing. It happens when he has to participate in the blanket party and beats Leonard. He crosses the line where he’s not playing and is participating. It also happens during Cowboy's death when he has to stand over that young Vietnamese girl and pull the trigger. He has to cross the line where he couldn’t have objectivity. He now had to participate.

I know it’s a big stretch, and you’re probably thinking, ‘What the fuck is Modine talking about?’ But there’s a real connection between Private Joker and Dr. Brenner, regarding objectivity and participation. Brenner is objectively doing these experiments, but he crosses that line of encouraging and loving to punishing, and that’s a line you can’t cross. So if anyone has a question about whether or not Brenner is a good person, just know he crosses the line and does what’s unacceptable.

The Twitter account for the Stranger Things writer's room has been offering tidbits about which lines and scenes were improvised. Do you have any improvisation stories to share?

I was presented to a guy who The Duffers described as Keys from Steven Spielberg’s E.T., played by Peter Coyote. I was supposed to be wearing flannel shirts, jeans, and boots. He was this guy doing experiments with kids, but he was not what you see Dr. Brenner is now. I presented to the Duffers the idea of Brenner wearing a suit like Cary Grant in North by Northwest, where when I fall and get up, the suit is clean.

What if I’m so clean-shaven the audience can almost smell my aftershave? The Duffers agreed with all those decisions down to me asking, ‘What if I dyed my hair white?’ That was inspired by a character I saw Marlon Brando play when he dyed his hair white, and Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner. So we bleached my hair white.

Henry Creel is the first child Dr. Brenner experiments on, but it seems Eleven is the most powerful. Since he’s a surrogate father of both, who do you feel Brenner loves the most?

I choose to believe that Brenner loved all of the [numbered children]. Each in their own way. Both 001 and 011 excelled far above the others, but that didn’t mean he loved either a greater amount—he just loved and admired them and their abilities differently. And, of course, because 001 was responsible for the murder of the other numbers, it would take a very cold and broken person not to harbor animosity and anger toward the person responsible.

You mentioned the possibility of not seeing past co-stars after production ends, but working on Stranger Things allowed you to work with your Bye Bye Love co-star Paul Reiser, who plays Dr. Sam Owens. What was it like sharing the screen with him again after almost 30 years?

It was wonderful because when we did Bye Bye Love, movie and television performers didn’t mix. If you worked in television, that was the small screen. If you worked in films, that was the big screen. Automatically, you think the big screen is better than the small screen. That pretense has been erased, but at the time, I was a movie star working with a TV star. So there was this kind of competitiveness when we made Bye Bye Love.

Now, we’re both older, and that pretense is gone. We were able to just work together with great appreciation. Paul Reiser was a major movie star for a big part of his career. He did Aliens, and one of my favorite movies, Diner. I was a fan of his when we were making Bye Bye Love.

The Stranger Things soundtrack is integral to the show’s success. Do you have any songs you think could’ve fit in Stranger Things during your time on the show?

I would say the entire soundtrack of the movie Vision Quest that I starred in. I think it’s one of the best soundtracks of any movie in the ‘80s. It had Red Rider and Journey, and it was the movie that introduced Madonna to the world with ‘Crazy For You’ and ‘Gambler.’ The whole soundtrack could’ve worked for any episode of Stranger Things. Also, the Rolling Stones' song ‘Sympathy For The Devil,’ too. He says, ‘Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name. But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game.’ Google the lyrics to that song, and you’ll be like, ‘Wow, that’s Dr. Brenner.’

Earlier this year, we found out you’ll be reuniting with Christopher Nolan for his biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, bringing you back into the world of scientists playing God like Dr. Brenner. What can you tell us about what you’ll do in the film?

I’m playing a character named Vannevar Bush. He was in charge of putting together the team and maintaining the security around the atomic bomb development. While the movie is very much about the development of the atomic bomb. It’s more about what you said—playing God. Oppenheimer quotes [Hindu scripture] Bhagavad Gita after the deployment of the atomic bomb by saying, ‘I [have] become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ The atomic bomb had the ability to alter and change the course of history.

Do you have any theories or hopes of what we’ll see in the final Stranger Things season?

Whether it’s Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones, it’s unbelievably difficult to do a final season. For one, people don’t want it to end. To find an end that is satisfactory for the audience is quite difficult. I felt that way about Ozark. That ended with a bang. I was like, ‘What? There must be something more that’s going to come. This couldn’t be the final episode.’ But it is. I have great faith in the Duffer Brothers and their creative partners to do something extraordinary and satisfactory for the billions of Stranger Things fans across the world.

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