HBO Actress Cast in ‘Stranger Things’ Spinoff

An HBO actress has joined the new Stranger Things spinoff.

I Love LA star Odessa A’zion will be lending her voice to Nikki Baxter in the animated spinoff Stranger Things: Tales From ’85.

The new show will take place between Seasons 2 and 3 of Stranger Things in the stark winter of 1985. Eleven (voiced by Brooklyn Davey Norstedt), Mike (Luca Diaz), Will (Benjamin Plessala), Dustin (Braxton Quinney), Lucas (Elisha “EJ” Williams), and Max (In Your Dreams’ Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) “have settled back into a normal life of D&D and quiet days. When something terrifying awakens beneath the snow blanketing the town, the kids must leap back into action to uncover a layered mystery.”

A’zion’s Nikki is a pink-haired transfer student who’s “super punk rock,” the actress told Tudum. She’s moved around for the majority of her life, so Nikki hasn’t had any real friends until now, and she’s grown accustomed to being on her own. She comes in as “the barbarian and the protector [of the crew],” A’zion explains. “They had everything, and she was the missing puzzle piece. You need a little muscle in that crew.”

Nikki is the muscle of the group, and she “wants to stick up for the people who have trouble sticking up for themselves, and I think she’s a bada– for that,” she added.

“Nikki is the audience’s eyes,” showrunner Eric Robles said. “She comes into this world completely new. She’s got her own issues that she’s been dealing with, and it’s these kids who step into her world in a sense.” So when the chaos starts to unfold, “she’s got to figure things out with the kids because there’s no way that she could just walk away [from what she’s seen] and pretend like it never happened.”

Robles revealed he and the Duffer Brothers had “big conversations” about introducing Nikki, making sure that “not only is the tone for the series what we all want it to be, but the new character feels like an addition to the cast. It’s not until we found what makes Nikki special to the team, what makes her unique, that we were just like, ‘OK, now we need to go all in.’”

The voice cast for Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 also includes Brett Gipson, Janeane Garofalo, and Lou Diamond Phillips. Robles executive produces alongside creators Matt and Ross Duffer with Hilry Leavitt for Upside Down Pictures, Shawn Levy via 21 Laps, and Dan Cohen. Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 premieres on April 23 only on Netflix.