‘Stranger Things’ Star Amybeth McNulty Says Joining the Netflix Phenomenon Has Been a “Weird Couple of Years”

Irish actress Amybeth McNulty is still wrapping her head around life inside the Stranger Things universe.

The Anne with an E star, who hails from County Donegal, said it’s been a “weird couple of years” since joining the cast of Netflix’s sci-fi horror juggernaut, admitting the scale of the show still feels surreal.

“It’s insane, I feel like a little cog in this very massive machine,” McNulty said.

The 24-year-old joined Stranger Things in its fourth season, playing Vickie, a Hawkins High School student — and later revealed to be the girlfriend of Maya Hawke’s Robin Buckley.

McNulty recently appeared on RTÉ’s The Late Late Show with Patrick Kielty, where she explained that being a longtime fan of the series actually helped her during the audition process.

“I know what the show likes, I know the pacing, I think I have an idea of how I can do this. But I didn’t think that I would get cast in any sort of world.”

When she found out she landed the role, the moment was overwhelming.

“I was screaming, crying down the phone,” she said.

The audition also carried deep personal weight. McNulty revealed it was the last one her parents knew she had done before they both passed away.

“They said they had a good feeling about it and they were right.”

Raised in Letterkenny by her Irish father and Canadian mother, McNulty moved to Canada at just 14 to star as Anne Shirley in Anne with an E. She credited her parents for making that leap possible.

“They moved with me to Canada… I was very, very lucky they were retired and they were able to that for me.

“They said they would do anything for me and they did.

“I will always appreciate it.”

Before international fame, McNulty trained in ballet and performed in local plays and musicals at An Grianán Theatre, experiences she says shaped her early love of acting. Looking back on her hometown, she emphasized how much the community mattered.

“There is a real sense of family there.

“It was everything.”

Her first television role came in 2014, when she co-starred as Jenny Rane in the RTÉ One series Clean Break.

McNulty has also spoken openly about representation and what it means to play a queer character on one of the world’s biggest shows. She shared that she grew up as “a queer kid in Donegal” and came out online at 16 or 17 as bisexual.

“We had people in my hometown going up to my parents going ‘oh I’m so sorry to hear about your daughter’ and I’m going ‘right okay, nothing to apologise for’, so it gives me more of an invigoration when I do roles like this and when I’m able to do things like this.”

For McNulty, playing Vickie isn’t just another credit — it’s personal.

“I wanted to do it justice and do it right for kids like me growing up,” she said.

“I think it is important, especially when the queer story line is a part of their chapter, whilst their dealing with monsters, in the 80s and there is all these other things going on, it doesn’t have to be about that. It is just a part of it.

“I think that is ideal.”