Who is Matthew Modine? Stranger Things star officiated Millie Bobby Brown’s wedding to Jake Bongiovi

Millie Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi shared pictures of their Italian wedding on Instagram, one of which showed Matthew Modine officiating the ceremony. The couple shared two carousels on their Instagram accounts on Wednesday, October 2, 2024. The images shared by Jake showed Millie's Stranger Things co-star, Matthew officiating the ceremony.

Millie Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi got married in an intimate ceremony in May 2024, three years after they began dating in 2021. They took to Instagram to share several photos of the wedding, including one of them hand-in-hand against a lush green backdrop. However, a particular photo that captured people's attention was one of the couple exchanging vows with Modine as the officiant.

Millie Bobby Brown and Matthew Modine co-starred in Netflix's Stranger Things. Modine played Dr. Martin Brenner, a scientist involved in the experimentation of children that gave them superpowers. His character served as the father figure for Brown's character Eleven, who calls him "Papa" throughout the show. According to Complex, after meeting on the set of Stranger Things season 1 in 2015, the two actors developed a close friendship.

In an interview with Access Hollywood, Modine spoke about officiating Brown and Bonjiovi's wedding, adding that he wrote their wedding vows. The actor said that the couple loved what he "wrote for them to join hands and become a husband and wife." He also said that the couple believed it would be a "great idea" for him to officiate their wedding.

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Matthew Modine studied under Stella Adler

Actor Matthew Avery Modine was born in California on March 22, 1959, to parents Dolores and Mark. While his mother was a bookkeeper, his father was a drive-in theatre manager, which is believed to have been where Matthew's love for cinema began. It was at the theatre that Modine would study the actors on screen.

In a 2017 interview with Autre, he said that his father's theatre "had a tremendous impact" on him when he was younger.

"I think in the same way that video stores had an impact on Quentin Tarantino. When you’re exposed to so many films it becomes a kind of language. In my case, because we’d play the same movie for weeks, I could see a movie three or four times in a week," he said.

He knew he wanted to be an actor from a young age, so he moved to New York in 1979, where he studied with Stella Adler in her Conservatory of Acting. While under her, he bagged several television and film roles, including his first film role in 1983's Baby It's You.

He was offered the role of LT Pete "Maverick" Mitchell from Top Gun, which he refused as his politics did not align with the movie's pro-military stance.

Matthew Modine's best-known role is Private/Sergeant J.T. "Joker" Davis in Stanley Kurbrick's 1987 flick Full Metal Jacket. He also played Deputy Commissioner Peter Foley in The Dark Knight Rises and Vannevar Bush in Oppenheimer. He was also a part of Married to the Mob.

Matthew Modine dabbled in television, playing his most famous TV role to date in Stranger Things. According to his IMDb profile, he has also done some stage acting and has directed several short films. His accolades include two Golden Globe nominations and one Emmy nomination.

On a personal front, Matthew Modine is an environmental activist, whose primary mode of transportation is cycling. He also started a pro-bike organization called Bicycle for a Day in 2004.

He married his wife Caridad Rivera in 1980, and the couple shares two children, Boman, an assistant director, and Ruby, a singer, actress, and ballet dancer.

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The filming for Stranger Things season 5 is underway, with the final season expected to be released in early 2025. It is unclear whether Matthew Modine will reprise his role as Dr. Brenner, who died in season 4's penultimate episode.