Alec Baldwin Felt Like ‘Grandpa Figure,’ Says Rust’s Patrick Scott McDermott (Exclusive)

• Patrick Scott McDermott options within the ensemble of Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which opened on Broadway April 22
• He additionally costars with Alec Baldwin and Josh Hopkins in Joel Souza’s Western Rust, in theaters May 2
• McDermott tells PEOPLE about working with Baldwin and teases the Stranger Things stage prequel

Meet Patrick Scott McDermott: one of many few actors who can say they’ve opened a Broadway present and made a characteristic movie debut back-to-back. 

The 16-year-old star options in one among this season’s buzziest Broadway productions, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which opened April 22 at New York City’s Marquis Theater.

Conceived by government producers Matt and Ross Duffer, creators of the Netflix hit, it’s a prequel set within the fictional city of Hawkins, Ind., in 1959, many years earlier than the characters on the middle of the Eighties-set collection. 

A mere 10 days later, McDermott’s movie Rust, led by actor-producer Alec Baldwin, has opened in theaters. In the Western from writer-director Joel Souza, the younger actor performs Lucas Hollister, a grieving teen in Eighteen Eighties Wyoming whose unintentional homicide of a neighbor kicks off an unlikely alliance with Baldwin’s infamous outlaw Harland Rust — who seems to be Lucas’ grandfather. 

“From the first day I met him, he kind of welcomed me in [and] felt like a grandpa figure,” McDermott tells PEOPLE of Baldwin, 67. “He is an actor at this caliber, and then me, this being my first movie! So for me, it was kind of surreal and insane that I was working with Alec Baldwin, and he was telling me stories from past movies he’d done. He was telling me about Tim Burton and 30 Rock.”

The Emmy winner “was generous and giving me room to learn from him,” recollects McDermott. The two costars had been roughing it “in the middle of nowhere” to seize the authenticity of the outdated West, he provides. “I remember I had dirt being put in my fingernails, in my toenails too, every single morning in the trailer. And I think I was scrubbing that out for about a month after.”

Turning to costar Josh Hopkins, who performs Rust’s sheriff Wood Helm, he provides, “Since you’ve all been doing this for so long, it was kind of just natural.”

“This is not hyperbole when I say this,” responds Hopkins, 54. “I cannot believe that this was Patrick’s first film. He’s incredible in this movie, so nuanced… I really do think in years down the road, I will be saying how honored I am I got to work with Patrick. He’s incredibly talented.”

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Now an ensemble member in First Shadow eight exhibits per week, McDermott (who made his Broadway debut as an understudy in 2021’s Flying Over Sunset) is relishing a whirlwind introduction to the highlight.

“The [Stranger Things] fans are insane,” he says with fun. “They are so committed, and they cheer, and it’s like their energy brings our energy up.”

First Shadow is “not like something you’ll ever see on a stage,” the younger actor guarantees. “These effects are crazy. It’s like you’re watching a TV episode right in front of your eyes live.”

Tickets to Stranger Things: The First Shadow are actually on sale. Rust, costarring Travis Fimmel, Frances Fisher and Jake Busey, is in choose theaters and on digital.