Joe Keery

Joseph David "Joe" Keery was born on April 24, 1992, in Newburyport, Massachusetts, USA. He grew up as the second child of a family with five children and became interested in acting through local theatre camps. After high school, he enrolled in the Theatre School at DePaul University and graduated in 2014 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Acting. Following his graduation, Keery remained in Chicago and auditioned for over 100 roles. During this period, in addition to appearing in commercials for brands such as Domino's and KFC, he took on small roles in television series like "Empire" and "Chicago Fire." He made his film debut with the independent movie "Henry Gamble's Birthday Party," released in 2015. The role that completely transformed Keery's career and brought him global fame was his portrayal in Netflix's phenomenon series "Stranger Things," which premiered in 2016. Although he initially auditioned for the role of Jonathan Byers, the producers called him back to play Steve Harrington.

In the first season, Steve was introduced as a popular but arrogant high school student, but thanks to Keery's charismatic performance, he became one of the show's main characters starting from the second season. Particularly through his "babysitter" relationship with Dustin, he became one of the most beloved characters among viewers and won the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award alongside the entire cast of the series. Following the success of "Stranger Things," Keery shifted focus toward his film career. He took on a small role in Aaron Sorkin's directed film "Molly's Game" (2017). In 2020, he showcased a different side of himself by starring as an obsessive social media influencer in the film "Spree." In 2021, he portrayed the video game programmer character "Keys" in the box-office hit "Free Guy", starring Ryan Reynolds. Between 2023 and 2024, he further demonstrated his dramatic talents by playing Gator Tillman in the fifth season of the critically acclaimed series "Fargo." Beyond acting, Keery is also a successful musician, continuing his solo music career under the stage name "Djo."

His albums "Twenty Twenty" (2019) and "Decide" (2022) received critical acclaim. He was previously a member of Chicago-based psych-rock band Post Animal.