Early life
Wolfhard was born and raised in Vancouver to a family of French and German descent with Jewish heritage.1 His father, Eric Wolfhard, researches Indigenous land claims in Canada and has also written screenplays; Finn has often credited his father's interest in filmmaking with shaping his own ambitions behind the camera.3 He has an older brother, Nick Wolfhard, who is also an actor and voice actor, and he attended Catholic school as a child.1
He began performing young, appearing in a music video and small screen parts before landing his first regular work through online casting calls rather than a traditional agent. His earliest credits include the Canadian-shot series The 100 (2014) and a single 2015 episode of Supernatural.1
Career
Acting
Wolfhard's breakthrough came in 2016 when he was cast as Mike Wheeler in the Duffer Brothers' Stranger Things, auditioning by video after finding an open casting call. The role made him one of the most recognizable young actors of his generation; the ensemble won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2017, and Wolfhard played Mike through the series' fifth and final season in 2025.1
In parallel he built a substantial film career. In 2017 he played wisecracking Richie Tozier in It, Andy Muschietti's adaptation of the Stephen King novel, reprising the role in flashback sequences for It Chapter Two (2019). The same year he played a young Boris Pavlikovsky in The Goldfinch (2019) and went on to lead the horror film The Turning (2020) as Miles Fairchild. He co-starred opposite Julianne Moore as Ziggy Katz in Jesse Eisenberg's directorial debut When You Finish Saving the World (2022), and appeared as an NBC page in Jason Reitman's Saturday Night (2024). In 2025 he featured in the A24 fantasy The Legend of Ochi, directed by Isaiah Saxon, alongside Willem Dafoe and Emily Watson.1
Wolfhard is also a prolific voice actor. He voiced "Player" in the Netflix animated series Carmen Sandiego (2019-2021), Pugsley Addams in The Addams Family (2019), Candlewick in Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022), and a younger Scott Pilgrim in Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (2023), among other roles.1
Directing and writing
Wolfhard directed his first short film, Night Shifts, at age 17; it was released online and won a Best Director prize at the Atlanta Shortfest in 2020.1 He made his feature directing debut co-directing and co-writing the camp slasher comedy Hell of a Summer with frequent collaborator Billy Bryk, in which the two also star. The film premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was a runner-up for the Midnight Madness People's Choice Award, and was later released theatrically by Neon in 2025.2 Wolfhard has described the project, which he and Bryk wrote partly in reaction to how their generation is portrayed on screen, as a deliberate step toward establishing himself beyond his on-camera roles.2
Music
Music has been a constant thread alongside acting. Wolfhard was the lead vocalist, guitarist, and a songwriter for the Vancouver rock band Calpurnia, which formed in 2017 and disbanded in November 2019. He then formed The Aubreys with former Calpurnia drummer Malcolm Craig, releasing the EP Soda & Pie in 2020 and the album Karaoke Alone in 2021. He launched a solo career with the album Happy Birthday in 2025.1
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
Wolfhard joined the Ghostbusters franchise as Trevor Spengler in Jason Reitman's Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Trevor is the teenage son of Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), the older brother of Phoebe Spengler (Mckenna Grace), and the grandson of original Ghostbuster Egon Spengler. When the family inherits Egon's derelict Oklahoma farm, Trevor restores the original Ecto-1 and is drawn into the resurgent supernatural events that the film builds around Egon's legacy.1
A line in which Trevor tells Podcast to stop breathing in his ear was improvised by Wolfhard on set. For the scene in which Trevor is slimed by Slimer in the firehouse attic, the production built a body-worn slime rig: a backpack unit carrying two pressure tanks and a vessel of slime between them, feeding tubes that delivered the slime into a bowl which reversed its direction to simulate being doused from above. The crew spent several weeks and ran multiple test subjects before the rig worked reliably.
Wolfhard's performance earned him the 2022 Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor in a Film.1
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
Wolfhard reprised Trevor in Gil Kenan's Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which relocates the Spengler family from Oklahoma back to the original New York City firehouse, where they operate as active Ghostbusters alongside surviving members of the original team.1
| Film |
Director |
Role |
| Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) |
Jason Reitman |
Trevor Spengler |
| Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) |
Gil Kenan |
Trevor Spengler |
Selected other works
The following is a brief, non-exhaustive selection of Wolfhard's work outside the Ghostbusters films.
| Project |
Type |
Role |
Year(s) |
| Stranger Things |
TV series |
Mike Wheeler |
2016-2025 |
| It |
Film |
Richie Tozier |
2017 |
| It Chapter Two |
Film |
Richie Tozier |
2019 |
| The Goldfinch |
Film |
Young Boris |
2019 |
| The Turning |
Film |
Miles Fairchild |
2020 |
| Carmen Sandiego |
Animated series |
Player (voice) |
2019-2021 |
| The Addams Family |
Animated film |
Pugsley (voice) |
2019 |
| When You Finish Saving the World |
Film |
Ziggy Katz |
2022 |
| Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio |
Animated film |
Candlewick (voice) |
2022 |
| Hell of a Summer |
Film |
Co-director, co-writer, actor |
2023 |
| The Legend of Ochi |
Film |
Actor |
2025 |
Wolfhard's Trevor has been merchandised by Hasbro, including a Fright Feature figure based on his Frozen Empire appearance, which sits alongside the rest of the Spengler-family lineup that GBFans.com collectors track. As an active member of the modern Ghostbusters cast he is a recurring presence on the convention and autograph circuit, where Afterlife- and Frozen Empire-era memorabilia signed by the younger cast continues to circulate among fans.
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
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"Finn Wolfhard," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finn_Wolfhard
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Variety, "'Hell of a Summer' Review: 'Stranger Things' Star Finn Wolfhard's Co-Directing Debut Is a Cut Above" (April 4, 2025), https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/hell-of-a-summer-review-finn-wolfhard-billy-bryk-1236354342/. Premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival (Midnight Madness) and the Neon theatrical release per Collider, "'Hell of a Summer' Sets a Spooky New Release Date," https://collider.com/hell-of-a-summer-new-release-date/.
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"Finn Wolfhard," The Canadian Encyclopedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/finn-wolfhard
