Joe Keery didn't think Stranger Things character would make it beyond first season

Joe Keery didn't think his Stranger Things character Steve Harrington would make it past season one.

The actor admitted during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon earlier this week that he didn't get all the scripts for the first season upfront so he wasn't sure of his character's fate.

"I read one, maybe, episode of the show – two episodes," he explained. "And it was kind of like a – we read three episodes, and then they had two more. It was really, they (the Duffer Brothers) were building it out as they were going. It was day-to-day (for me)."

Keery only had a recurring role in season one, but he was upgraded to a main character for season two and Steve has since become a core member of the cast and a fan favourite.

Over the course of the four seasons, Steve has evolved from simply being Nancy Wheeler's (Natalia Dyer) "jerky boyfriend" to best friends with Gaten Matarazzo's Dustin and Maya Hawke's Robin and a major player in the battle to save Hawkins from evil.

Reflecting on the global phenomenon the Netflix show has become, Keery told Fallon: "It feels like such a small thing when you're doing it down there (in Atlanta), when you're shooting and working, and then so many people have seen it, it's crazy."

Keery will return as Steve for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things.

The show has been one of Netflix's biggest to date, though the streaming giant reported losing nearly one million subscribers in the second quarter of 2022.

However, execs had feared double that number, and cited Stranger Things as the reason more people stayed with them.