Cary Elwes wants Stranger Things fans to know that his character, Larry Kline isn’t trolling Donald Trump, the Huffington Post reports.
The actor joined the cast for Season 3 of Stranger Things as the corrupt, egotistic, and selfish mayor of the Indiana town. Prior to the new season, there were murmurs online that Kline was inspired by Trump, and for a number of reasons: his campaign signage was similar to Trump’s; Kline has suspicious ties to Russia; and at one point, after suffering bruising on his face, he has to wear makeup that looks slightly orange in appearance.
However, Elwes wants everyone to know that there are no purposeful parallels between Kline and Trump.
“There’s nothing,” he told Huffpost. “I think that somehow got picked up by a reporter and people ran with it, but that has no bearing on our current president whatsoever. I mean, I don’t know where anyone saw orange makeup? But I certainly didn’t see any. No, he just happened to be a politician who is very self-centered, and is very driven by material things, but it’s not a comment on the president at all.”
In an interview with ComicBookMovie.com, the actor shared that he also thought the character was Trump-inspired. However, Matt and Ross Duffer dismissed that notion.
“The Duffers told me that they wanted me to play this character and allowed me to pick and choose between a number of politicians on my own, which I ran by them, and make it a combination of people as I chose fit,” Elwes explained to HuffPost. “They basically wanted to make a comment on how politics play in the story. Because you have a character like Hopper, played wonderfully by David Harbour, who is a man who deeply cares about the community. And in stark contrast, you have a mayor who basically couldn’t care less.”
Season 3 of Stranger Things is now playing on Netflix.
