Joe Keery is setting the record straight on why he recently dressed up as his Stranger Things character Steve Harrington to officiate a friend’s wedding.
The actor explained that he donned Steve’s Scoops Ahoy sailor costume from season 3 of the hit Netflix series because his friends had a Halloween-themed ceremony. And, yes, it really was his original outfit.
“Amy Parris, who does costumes for the show, lent me the costume,” Keery confirmed on Thursday’s episode of The Tonight Show. “There’s a dozen costumes.”
Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty
The 33-year-old actor and musician officiated the wedding of his close friend and Post Animal bandmate Matt Williams and Veronica Capaldi in Simi Valley, Calif., last month. While visiting The Tonight Show, he shared that it was Capaldi who suggested that he dress up as Steve for the event.
“I was on tour earlier this year, and Matt and Veronica, who are in this picture, they’re getting married,” he said. “Veronica was like, ‘I think it’d be great. It’s a costume wedding. It’s Halloween. You should go as [Steve].’”
He clarified that everyone else who attended the ceremony was in costume too, despite images from the event making it appear like he randomly decided to officiate Matt and Veronica’s wedding dressed as Steve.
“I mean, it looks like I just did this for two random people,” he said as he looked at an image of himself standing between the formally dressed couple. “These are my friends! There’s a bunch of people in costumes!”
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To prove his point, Keery also brought a snapshot of the wedding party. “We’ve got Wes [Toledo] as the Riddler,” he said, pointing out another one of his Post Animal bandmates. “Shrek over there.”
Keery wore the Scoops Ahoy costume for almost the entirety of the third season of Stranger Things, which saw Steve pick up a job at a local ice cream shop in the mall. It’s there he meets Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke), who helps him and the gang crack a bunch of secret Russian codes.
He noted that he sported the outfit “for a good year of my life,” despite his attempts to get the Duffer Brothers to change up his look.
“I kind of had thought, you know, we’re in the action, there’s Russians we’re fighting, we’re in an underground lair and stuff… shouldn’t I take off the blouse part?” Keery said. “Maybe the handkerchief? I could lose the handkerchief.”
He continued, “And the Duffer Brothers [said], ‘Oh, no, no, no — I think you should keep the whole thing. It’s a look. The whole thing is a look.’”
Keery added that the costume fit differently when he wore it for the wedding. “It was a little tighter this time around, I gotta be honest with you,” he said. “The shorts didn’t fit quite the same.”
The actor reprised his role as Steve in the final season of Stranger Things, which dropped its first four episodes on Wednesday. The remaining episodes will be released in two separate drops; The second volume is set to be released on Christmas Day, and the finale will air on New Year’s Day.
Watch Keery discuss officiating his friend’s wedding as Steve in the clip above.