Sean Astin in Stranger Things: the actor behind Bob Newby, from The Goonies to Hawkins

Who is Sean Astin

Sean Astin was born on February 25, 1971, in Santa Monica, California. His mother was the actress Patty Duke, who won the Oscar for best supporting actress for The Miracle Worker, a 1962 film. In 1972, she married the actor John Astin, Gomez in The Addams Family on television. John Astin adopted the boy. His biological father, Michael Tell, was married to Patty Duke for only thirteen days, in 1970.

His mother had a second son, Mackenzie Astin, born in 1973, also an actor. Sean's first role dates from 1981: a TV movie, Please Don't Hit Me, Mom, in which he plays a child opposite his own mother. In France, he is mostly heard in the voice of Christophe Lemoine, who also dubs Bob, as our piece on the French voices points out.

This article follows the actor. The character has his own page: the portrait of Bob Newby, from the electronics store to the lab. Here we look at how a child of 1985 became, more than thirty years later, the guileless man of season 2.

1. 1971 Santa Monica

   Born on February 25. His mother, Patty Duke, marries John Astin the following year.

2. 1985 The Goonies

   His first film, directed by Richard Donner. He is Mikey Walsh, the leader of the gang.

3. 1993 Rudy

   The title role: a boy without the build who dreams of playing for Notre Dame.

4. 2001-2003 The Lord of the Rings

   Sam, across Peter Jackson's three films. The cast award follows in 2004.

5. 2017 Bob Newby

   Season 2 comes out on October 27. Bob dies in episode 8.

6. December 2017 A nomination

   The season 2 cast is nominated by the Screen Actors Guild. The award goes to This Is Us, in January.

7. 2019 Memories

   Season 3 brings him back in Joyce's memories.

8. September 2025 The union

   He is elected president of SAG-AFTRA, forty years after his mother's election.

The Goonies, and why Bob is a nod to it

The Goonies came out in 1985. Richard Donner directed, Chris Columbus wrote the screenplay, from a story by Steven Spielberg. Sean Astin played Mikey Walsh, the asthmatic leader of a gang of kids from Astoria, Oregon. They find an old treasure map and go down into tunnels to save their homes. It was his first film. He was thirteen when he made his big-screen debut.

More than thirty years later, the Duffer brothers, born in 1984, built their show out of those films. The show's 80s references list many of them, from E.T.'s bike to the demodogs modeled on Aliens. In season 2, one of them has a face: the former Mikey joins the main cast.

The parallel holds in the story. Mikey followed a map to tunnels. Bob, in 1984, looks at Will's drawings and realizes that they form a map of Hawkins, then goes down with Joyce into the tunnels dug under the town. The viewer who grew up with The Goonies sees the former gang leader turned into the adult who can read the map. Paul Reiser, from Aliens, arrives the same season: the season 2 cast introduces all the 1984 recruits.

Rudy, Sam and the roles that followed

After The Goonies, the roles kept coming: Memphis Belle in 1990, Toy Soldiers in 1991, Encino Man in 1992. In 1993, Rudy gave him a title role. In this David Anspaugh film, he plays Daniel Ruettiger, who dreams of playing college football at Notre Dame with neither the grades, nor the money, nor the build. He later parodied it himself in an episode of My Name Is Earl.

In 1994, he directed a short film, Kangaroo Court, which he co-produced with his wife, Christine. The film was nominated for an Oscar. Then came the role that follows him everywhere: Samwise Gamgee, known as Sam, in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, from 2001 to 2003. The last installment won eleven Oscars. The cast of The Return of the King received the Screen Actors Guild ensemble award in 2004, and Sean Astin won a Saturn Award for best supporting actor.

He tells the story of those shoots in a 2004 book, There and Back Again, written with Joe Layden. Then came comedies, TV series and a lot of voice work: 50 First Dates and Click with Adam Sandler, Lynn McGill in the fifth season of 24 in 2006, the voice of Raphael in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from 2012 to 2017, Jim Kent in The Strain in 2014. The show's cast, season by season, brings together other faces from that era, from Matthew Modine to Paul Reiser.

Bob Newby, arriving in 1984

His casting was announced in the fall of 2016, at the same time as Paul Reiser's. Filming began in November 2016, in Atlanta. Sean Astin was 45 at the time. He went straight into the main cast of season 2, which came out on October 27, 2017.

Bob is the partner of Joyce Byers, whom he knew in high school, as did Hopper. He runs the town's RadioShack and sees a future with this family. He happily calls himself a “superhero”: an electronics-store superhero. Opposite him, Joyce is played by Winona Ryder, born the same year as he was.

With Will, Bob plays the stand-in father. In episode 3, “The Pollywog,” he tells him to face his fears. Will does, and the shadow takes him. In episode 5, it is Bob again who realizes that Will's drawings form a map of the town. Thanks to him, Hopper, trapped underground, is found.

Bob is missing from two episodes. He is absent from the fourth, “Will the Wise,” the first in the series in which a main cast member does not appear, and from the seventh, “The Lost Sister,” which takes place far from town. One detail also ties the actor to this setting: his wife, Christine, was Miss Indiana Teen USA in 1984. The right state, the right year.

Bob's death, at the lab

Bob dies in episode 8, “The Mind Flayer.” The demodogs overrun the lab. The power cuts out, the doors lock. Joyce, Hopper, Mike, a sleeping Will, Bob and Dr. Owens have taken refuge in a room. Bob is the only one who knows how to restart the system. He volunteers.

Owens guides him from the security monitors. Bob restores the power and reopens the doors. Mike, Hopper, Joyce and Will reach the exit; Owens stays at his post to guide Bob. Bob hides from a demodog. A broom falls to the floor, and the chase begins.

The demodogs catch Bob in the lobby, a few yards from the exit, as Joyce and Hopper watch. Joyce is devastated. It is the season 2 death singled out in the list of the show's deaths. The season 2 recap tells what comes next: the group falls back to the Byers house, and the night goes on without him.

What the show holds on to is grief. In the summer of 1985, Joyce has not gotten over it and is thinking of leaving town with her kids. In 2019, season 3 brings Sean Astin back in Joyce's memories.

After season 2: a nomination, new roles, a union

On December 13, 2017, the season 2 cast was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award, in the category of outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series. Sean Astin was among the nominees. On January 21, 2018, the award went to This Is Us. Not to be confused with January 2017: that award, which the cast won, honored season 1, before Bob arrived.

Then he moved on to other sets: Dr. Greg Pemberton in three episodes of The Big Bang Theory, Ed in No Good Nick and a stint on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, in 2019. He also appeared in the fifth season of Supergirl. From November 2024 to January 2025, he made his Broadway debut as Santa Claus, in a revival of Elf.

On September 12, 2025, he was elected president of SAG-AFTRA, the actors' union, with 79.25% of the vote, for a two-year term. He succeeded Fran Drescher. His mother, Patty Duke, had led the Screen Actors Guild from 1985 to 1988. She had been elected the year of The Goonies. The son follows the mother, forty years later.

Bob died in 1984, a few yards from the doors he had just reopened. The actor, for his part, kept going.

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