Beneath the powdered wigs and aristocratic cosplay, Fire From the Hip finds Wolfhard wrestling with something much more contemporary: the uneasy distance between confidence and self-doubt, and the strange feeling of arriving somewhere you’re still not entirely convinced you belong.

It’s no coincidence that the album takes direct inspiration from one of Wolfhard’s favourite films, Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, and its famous duel scene.

“What I love about that movie is that it’s a guy who is just kind of a fraud, a little bit of a con,” he explains. “He’s like the original climber, basically lying his way into being a lord.”

For Wolfhard, the duel is more than a clever reference. It’s a pivotal moment that sets the rest of the film in motion, but there is also something familiar in its protagonist: a man who, by all reasonable accounts, probably shouldn’t be where he is. And yet, there he stands.

“I feel like sometimes that’s just how I feel,” Wolfhard admits. “Where I’m just like, I should not be here.”

That tension became central to the visual world of Fire From the Hip. By casting himself on both sides of the duel, Wolfhard turns the pistol inward.

“This idea of the kind of battle you have with yourself a little bit, where you have this confident side of yourself that you feel can get things done, and then you have this other side of yourself that feels like, you know, you don’t deserve it, or that you feel a little more anxious.”

The music carries that same instinct for visual storytelling. Wolfhard describes himself as a songwriter drawn to images, building songs that can be seen as much as heard.

“I love writing lyrics that invoke very clear, vivid visuals,” he says.

It makes sense for someone whose creative life has unfolded across screens, stages and recording studios. His experience as both an actor and director inevitably bleeds into the way he thinks about music, but on Fire From the Hip, those disciplines don’t feel compartmentalized.

“I love being able to tie those things all together and make it a little cinematic as well.”

That world extends beyond the songs themselves. The videos surrounding the album return to the record’s period costuming, while a striking stop-motion visualizer for “Tunnels” embraces the kind of handmade imperfection Wolfhard gravitates toward.

He was closely involved throughout the process, working with friends Hudson McNeese and Louie Nice, who shot the “Tunnels” visualizer and have also photographed him on tour. Wolfhard lights up describing how they built a darkroom on the road and developed their photographs as the tour unfolded.

In an era when practically every second of a young artist’s life can be captured, edited and uploaded before the night is over, there is something almost stubborn about Wolfhard’s attraction to processes that take time. The grain, imperfections and physical labour are part of the appeal, but so are the people behind them.

“It just felt right,” he says. “There’s a certain passion that these guys… I just think they’re really devoted and really passionate.”

That sense of creative community has become increasingly important as Wolfhard enters what he calls a “choose your own adventure” period of his life. With Stranger Things behind him, a structure that shaped much of his adolescence has suddenly disappeared. In its place is the freedom to decide what comes next.