After a three-year hiatus, Dacre Montgomery is back onscreen with multiple upcoming projects.
The Australian actor explained that following his run as Billy Hargrove on Netflix‘s Stranger Things from 2017 to 2022, he decided to “take time to step back” and reevaluate his career after he felt it was being “pushed in a commercial direction.”
“I think with Stranger Things — as any big show on Netflix — it’s kind of like you lose your anonymity overnight,” he explained to People. “And it was amazing and overwhelming and a combination of many things, and I felt really lucky and really fortunate to have that opportunity.”
“But I think for me, I grew up really wanting to work with [auteur] directors on arthouse films and really explore how far I can push myself in terms of character development and really, really fall in love with stories. And when Stranger Things came out, I felt like … I was really being pushed in a commercial direction,” added Montgomery.
The Power Rangers (2017) star said it took at lease five years to get his career back on track with the kinds of projects he wanted to make.
“That sort of stuff takes time to kind of reverse engineer a career that’s going one way into a different direction,” he said. “It takes time, and I can’t just generate a story, an amazing story [and] an amazing director in front of my eyes.”
Montgomery added, “Now I kind of feel like I’m in a really, really good space with a couple of great movies coming up that fit the bill… in terms of where I wanted to be.”
Following his last role as Steve Binder in Baz Luhrmann‘s Elvis (2022), Montgomery can be seen in and Samuel van Grinsen’s Went Up the Hill, now in select theaters; Dan Kay’s What We Hide, debuting Aug. 29 on digital; and Gus Van Sant‘s Dead Man’s Wire, making its world premiere Sept. 2 at Venice International Film Festival.
Additionally, Montgomery has been cast in Daniel Goldhaber’s Faces of Death, as well as The Engagement Party, which also marks his directorial debut.
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