Finn Wolfhard

Early Life and Education

Finn Wolfhard was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. His father, Eric Wolfhard, is a licensed lawyer involved in research related to Indigenous land claims and has also written several screenplays. Finn’s mother is Mary Jolivet. Finn’s older brother, Nick Wolfhard, is a voice actor.

Wolfhard is of German and French ancestry. He was raised Catholic and was homeschooled in Grade 7 before attending St. Patrick Regional Secondary School, a Catholic high school in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood. He has spoken highly of his time there and graduated in 2020.

Early Career

Finn Wolfhard has mentioned Sam Raimi’s Spiderman (2002) as a major influence on his life and pursuit of acting as a profession. Finn realized he wanted to get into acting around the age of eight and booked his first acting job at age nine. Initially, he started out by responding to online ads for freelance acting work. After a few years doing this somewhat regularly, Eric Wolfhard hired Finn an agent. Finn’s earliest credits include two music videos, filmed in 2012 and 2013, as well as the short film Aftermath (2013).

Acting

Finn Wolfhard has credited his appearance in the 2014 music video for PUP’s song “Guilt Trip” as a key step in his career. His successful audition at an open casting call encouraged him to do more, and his appearance in the music video was included in his audition tape for Stranger Things. He went on to appear in several other music videos, including one for Weezer’s cover of a-ha’s 1984 hit “Take on Me.”

Foreshadowing his later success, some of Wolfhard’s earliest roles were in science fiction, horror and paranormal productions, including the TV series The 100 (2014) and Supernatural (2015). His breakout film role was as Richie Tozier in the 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s It. Wolfhard reprised this role in It Chapter Two (2019).

Wolfhard’s career has been distinguished by roles in programs that are either remakes of films and television from the 1980s or new productions that are highly referential to the films and television culture of 1980s America. This includes his work in Stranger Things (2016–present) and It (2017), as well as his role in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021). As such, he has become strongly associated with contemporary Gen-X/ Millennial interest in 1980s pop culture nostalgia.

Wolfhard’s voice acting credits include 32 episodes of the animated TV series Carmen Sandiego (2019–2021) as well as the animated feature films The Addams Family (2019) and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022).

Directing

After co-directing the music video for Spendtime Palace’s “Sonora” in 2017, Finn Wolfhard made his directorial debut in 2020 with the comedy short film Night Shifts, which he also wrote. It won the Best Director Award at the 2020 Atlanta ShortsFest. His feature directorial debut came with the horror-comedy Hell of a Summer (2023), which he starred in and co-wrote and co-directed with Billy Bryk. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was a finalist for the Midnight Madness People’s Choice Award.

Music

Finn Wolfhard is also a seasoned musician. He plays harmonica, bass, drums, piano and guitar. He has been in two bands. The first was Calpurnia, a Vancouver-based rock band, where he played guitar, sang lead vocals and was the band’s primary songwriter. Calpurnia released a six-track EP in 2018. After Calpurnia disbanded in 2019, Wolfhard joined the Aubreys in 2020. The Aubreys released their first LP, Karaoke Alone, in 2021.

Modelling

Finn Wolfhard has been the official spokesmodel for fashion company Saint Laurent since 2019. He has been featured in such fashion magazines as GQ, Esquire and Interview and is represented by CAA Fashion in New York.

Awards

• Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series (Stranger Things), Screen Actors Guild Awards (2017)
• Best Young Ensemble Cast – Television Series (Stranger Things), Young Entertainer Awards (2017)
• Breakthrough Star (It), Odyssey Awards (2017)
• Best On-Screen Team (It), MTV Movie + TV Awards (2018)
• Best Director (Night Shifts), Atlanta ShortsFest (2020)
• Best Performance by a Younger Actor/Actress (Ghostbusters: Afterlife), Saturn Awards (2022)
• Favorite Male TV Star – Family (Stranger Things), Kids’ Choice Awards (2023)