Caution: This post contains minor spoilers for season two of Stranger Things.

Newcomer Billy (played by Zac Efron lookalike Dacre Montgomery) is a welcome addition to Hawkins, Indiana…for horny teen girls and suburban moms, that is. To everyone else, he’s a nightmare almost on the level of the Demogorgon. And like most burgeoning psychopaths, the deeply disturbed teenager has two sides: his true self—a dark being who terrorizes his younger stepsister, Max, and her friends—and his public persona, a suave and sexy heartthrob with piercing blue eyes and a winning smile.

It’s a hard balance to pull off authentically, but executive producer Shawn Levy says Dacre was the obvious pick for the part. “He’s absurdly pretty and ridiculously charming in real life too,” Shawn explains. “We feel like Dacre was genetically engineered to be a heartthrob. As soon as we saw his audition, he got the part. We’ve never cast anyone else without a callback, except Dacre. We saw his tape from Australia, and in three lines, the Duffers and I were texting each other. We were like, ‘He’s Billy. Book him right now. Lock him up right this frickin’ minute.'”

Their gamble paid off: Dacre manages to make even somebody as maniacal as Billy seem somewhat redeemable, most notably in a scene where we realize a lot of his behavior was learned from his equally scary father. “Initially Billy’s perceived as a maniac, but I think there are many redeemable qualities about him,” Dacre tells us. “We get some exposition around that with his father, to see why he is the way he is. The Duffers and I had a discussion early on this season about giving Billy something like that, because humanizing the antagonist is the best thing to do for the character. I tried to do that, but doing that scene helped push that along.”

“I mean, he’s an awful human being, but you know where it’s coming from,” Sadie Sink, who plays his stepsister Max, adds. “Once you see his dad, you’re like, ‘They’re both awful human beings.’ It’s a sad family situation. The relationship between Max and Billy is definitely intense, but it was fun to film because it challenges me as an actress. You feel so bad for her, but you feel bad for Billy because you find out where his anger is coming from, so it’s very complicated.”

That complicated relationship between Max and Billy didn’t extend offscreen, though. “Sadie seems a lot older than she is. She’s definitely an old soul, but we had fun,” Dacre explains. “That probably sounds ludicrous, because a lot of the scenes are intense, but we get along well. There was no chemistry read prior, so we had never met each other. She has a wonderful family that comes to set with her as well, so it felt extremely secure and safe. I don’t like to think I’m a person that’s going to throw something crazy at her. I’m not going to put her in any situation that makes her feel uncomfortable. I have a sister that’s the same age difference, and she’s my only sibling, so I feel close to that relationship.”

It helps to see a more human side of Billy, but the best scene with him, hands down, is when he runs into Karen Wheeler (Cara Buono). The two share a brief (and hilarious) moment of flirtation that many fans are hoping will be revisited in season three. That chemistry between Cara and Dacre was there from the start, though. “I took a picture of Dacre at the read-through,” Cara reveals. “We were sitting next to each other, and he was just so charming and handsome and lovely, so I said, ‘I just want a picture to commemorate this moment.’ I didn’t know what they were planning, because they tell you things are going to happen one way and then they save it for another season. So when the scene came up, I thought, This is very interesting going on with Karen Wheeler! It was just a lot of fun to shoot it. We all tried not to laugh. Dacre is a phenomenal actor and very, very sexy.”

“That scene is an instant classic,” Shawn adds. “The way Dacre takes that cookie at the end was not scripted. Dacre improvised, kind of like Brando with the peach in A Streetcar Named Desire, to make it something kind of animalistic and dangerous, but also, ‘I need to have sex with him right now.’ All of that in one!”

But don’t expect Billy to get a total redemption story in season three. “I think something far more sinister is going to happen,” Dacre shares. “It’s resting at the surface level to an extent, so I think a lot of stuff is going to happen. I would like to see Billy fall in love. That would humanize him even more and be a contrast, if something more sinister does happen and we’ve got this love story happening on the sidelines. I don’t write the show, obviously, but the Duffers are extremely collaborative.”

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