From the moment he stomped across the cafeteria table in his sleeveless denim vest, rocking his wild metalhead locks, Joseph Quinn stole our hearts. (If you ask the PTA of Hawkins, he stole our souls, too.) Though he credits the majority of his success to The Wig in an interview with The Guardian, there's something about Quinn that has made his Stranger Things character Eddie Munson authentic and unforgettable to fans. Between the frizzy, glam-rock Van Halen 'do and the Dungeon Master-tude, Eddie Munson is undoubtedly the if-he-dies-we-riot character of Season 4.

Nearly unrecognizable without his other half — the wig — the real Quinn hails from South London where he first began acting, primarily in period dramas. According to Quinn, the audition for Stranger Things was fated, as it only took him two self-made tapes before the show's creators, The Duffer Brothers, must have seen the charisma that fans instantly latched onto. For Quinn the lack of audition process was "...pretty unusual and very disarming," but after sending in his tapes performing Eddie's seminal speech - the one where he bemoans the acceptance of parties and basketball and throws up the devil horns - Quinn was given the part. What makes the shift from period pieces to '80s sci-fi horror seamless, however, is the headbanging hair, Quinn swears, saying "99.7% of the work is that wig."

As fans may have gleaned, Eddie Munson's character is loosely based off of the real-life Damien Echols who, along with two of his friends, was wrongfully convicted of murder in the '90s due to their social outcast status. Quinn plays Eddie as an erratic beacon of hope to the outcasts, including Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), and is eventually pinned as a murderer in a town witch hunt because of his unusual interests in D&D and metal. As for Quinn, he admitted that he "tried grappling with Dungeons & Dragons" but that it was the music that connected him to the part in the end. In preparation, he "listened to a lot of heavy metal – Black Sabbath, Metallica, Dio," hence the guitar-kissing and wielding.

Joseph Quinn as Eddie Munson in Stranger Things Season 4
Image via Netflix

RELATED: 'Stranger Things' Season 4 Volume 2 Trailer Holds Danger and Darkness for the Heroes of Hawkins

When questioned about Season 4 Volume 2's lengthy epic finale, Quinn said:

"The thing is, they’ve got my family tied up somewhere and if I spoil anything, I’ll never see them again. No, I can say there’s a guitar scene and that the scale and ambition are astonishing. All the seeds that have been planted bear fruit and it’s just carnage. You know the finale is two-and-a-half hours, right? Ending with this monster, feature-length episode is so bold."

Though we were first introduced to Eddie as the menacing Dungeon Master of the Hellfire Club, Quinn played him as enigmatic, glowering at his Hellfire subjects in one scene and sympathizing with the cheerleading captain the next. It's his wishy-washy heroics that make him so genuine to fans, from refusing to leave the boat to ultimately following his newfound friends into Mordor. Fans are enamored by Quinn's mischievous grin and boisterous devil-may-care persona, while he himself credits Eddie's charm to the "objectively ridiculous" wig.

While the myth and lore of Eddie Munson the Banished will forever maintain a special place among Stranger Things fans, we will hopefully be seeing more of Quinn in the final fifth season. To that, he can only say, "I’ll be furious if they don’t bring me back [laughs]. I’d love to if they’ll have me."

Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 2 returns to the Upside Down on July 1. You can watch the trailer for the final episodes down below.