There is no doubt that Joseph Quinn is the breakout star from the massively successful Stranger Things 4. However, not even he could guess that his status as a breakout star would become, well, literal. In an interview with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, Quinn detailed a run-in he had with U.S. Immigration at the airport on the way to his appearance on Fallon's show and how if it weren't for the success of Quinn's Stranger Things character Eddie Munson, the Metallica loving, Dungeons and Dragons playing rocker, he might still be waiting in the airport right now.
“I very nearly didn’t make it,” Quinn said of the incident on The Tonight Show. “I was taken into, I guess what you could call it more of a dungeon. And I was asked to wait there for about 20 minutes and then I was summoned to this desk where someone asked me, ‘What are you doing in the United States, sir?’ I said, ‘I’m actually here to meet Jimmy Fallon on ‘The Tonight Show.’ And he didn’t believe me.”
All seemed lost in the situation until a second officer came in, who just so happened to be a fan of the Netflix blockbuster series. Upon assessing the situation, Quinn said, "[o]ne of his colleagues looked over at him, looked at me, and said: ‘Leave Eddie alone!'” he said. “And then [the colleague] said, ‘It’s Eddie from Stranger Things,‘ and he was like, ‘You’re Eddie Munson?'”
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The love for Eddie Munson by the officer was also paired with a pretty intense inquiry for answers regarding the fate of the heroic metal-head, as Quinn recounted,“[The man asked], ‘Do you come back next season?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know,’ and he said, ‘You better,’ and gave me my passport.”
This anecdote is certainly a good indicator of Quinn's overwhelming success as the breakout character of Eddie Munson, the rocker character who fell to the villainous Vecna in the newest season of Stranger Things.
Even though it seems like Quinn's fame has come out of nowhere, he has been working as an actor for years, even counting a small role in Game of Thrones among his credits. Who knows what's next for Quinn in his career. Though a return as Munson is unlikely, Stranger Things have happened.
Season 4 of Stranger Things is now available to stream on Netflix. Check out Collider's interview with Quinn on Eddie's fate and learning to play Metallica below: