Gaten Matarazzo bounces into the Garden Restaurant of London’s Corinthia Hotel, full of smiles. Upstairs, he’s been with castmates talking through the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, the epic Netflix sci-fi/horror that started way back in 2016. After a decade on a show that defined his adolescence – he’s 23 now – it’s all coming to an end this winter. So how is he feeling? “Anticipatory, I guess. A little anxious.”
Dressed today in a baseball cap and casuals, an outfit that cunningly disguises that apprehension, it’s an understandable sentiment. Perhaps because he and his fellow cast – Joe Keery, Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard among them – are enduring the longest of long goodbyes. The last season dropped in 2022, along with the announcement that the fifth season would be the last. Three years is a long time, especially when journalists keep asking Matarazzo and co. how they are feeling about this impending end.
“You spend so much time worrying about [the show finishing], but it still hits you like a truck”
“It became a joke between all of us that we’ve been saying goodbye for longer than we’ve actually been doing the show. But even though you spend so much time worrying about [the show finishing], but it still hits you like a truck,” he says. Filming finished last December and that surreal final day on set will remain forever ingrained in his memory. “Lots of tears, lots of giggles, for sure,” he says. The series wrap party wasn’t even a surprise. “You could see the confetti and balloons suspended over the set from the beginning of the day.”
Now he’s got the very final Stranger Things press tour with visits scheduled for England, Germany, Italy, Japan and beyond. A theatre kid at heart – as a teen, he started his career in New York, in productions of Godspell, Les Misérables and Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert – he’s planning to spend tonight at a show in London, purely for pleasure. “That’s what I’ve been focusing on,” he says, “letting this be as just relaxing and enjoyable as it can be, even though it’s a lot of hustling.”
In truth, he doesn’t need to hustle us into watching the finale of Stranger Things, a show that has brilliantly tapped into our relentless nostalgia for all things ’80s, especially the iconic movies of the era such as The Goonies and Ghostbusters. As we chat over afternoon tea, Matarazzo doesn’t seem affected by the grind of a relentless press junket, giving thoughtful responses throughout. “I try not to beat a dead horse with my answers,” he replies when asked what viewers can expect from the final season.
Naturally, he’s been asked this dozens of times already today but he takes it seriously. “I don’t want to just give a softball ‘I guess you’ll have to wait and see’ type answer,” he says. “We hit the ground running. It feels tremendously cinematic and it’s weird because every other season is a bit of a slow-burn build towards what the crux is going to be for that season. But from the very beginning, they are approaching this one as the climax to what feels like a long movie.”
Returning us to Hawkins, Indiana, the year is 1987 and Matarazzo’s Dustin and his friends must go toe-to-toe with Vecna, the murderous supernatural presence from the spooky world that lies beneath, The Upside Down. Understandably, Dustin has bottled up the immense loss he endured after the death of his friend Eddie (Joseph Quinn) who sacrificed himself in the season four finale. Wearing a full-on mullet, trench-coat and ‘Hellfire’ T-Shirt, a nod to the Dungeons & Dragons club Eddie ran, Dustin looks a world away from the nerdy kid we first met.
“His personality shift seems very rooted in his inability to helpfully grieve,” says Matarazzo, when talk turns to the four-way fight that Dustin gets into in the first episode of the new season. “I wouldn’t be celebratory of his shift, because it does lead him to a pickle or two. He’s in a darker place which makes him distant. Weirdly enough, those times where people need their friends and their family, they do tend to distance themselves from them. It’s frustrating to see, frustrating to play and I’ve been there.”
“There were a lot of interesting parallels going into the fifth season that rang eerily true to experiences that I’d had”
“I lost somebody around the same age who was tremendously close to me at a very similar time,” he continues, alluding to the death of his cousin Joey who tragically died, aged 19, in a car crash back in 2020. Matarazzo was 17 at the time and looked up to Joey like an older brother. The loss came the same year he underwent surgery for cleidocranial dysplasia (CCD), a rare condition which affects the growth of the bones and teeth. The actor was obviously grief-stricken but also confused by others’ reactions.
“People seem to deal with it very differently. And there’s a universe where my family and I treated our loss in the same way Dustin does – of distancing themselves, growing angry and resentful then ostracising themselves from what they need most. I don’t think I necessarily went down that path but there’s a world where I could have, and that’s interesting to think about going into the fifth season.”
So he was able to draw from this for Dustin’s arc in season five? “For sure. [There were] a lot of interesting parallels going into the fifth season that rang eerily true to experiences that my family and I had. Even if I dealt with it differently, I know people who dealt with it similarly to Dustin and that aided how I approached what he was doing.”
Matarazzo’s own New Jersey upbringing may have differed from Dustin’s but there’s a grounded quality to both actor and character. His early years were filled with acting dreams. “Both my siblings were at home so my mum needed to be there for them as well. My dad worked two jobs to ensure that my mum could take care of me as I went up [to New York to audition]. But it was a pretty difficult process. The grind of it. I didn’t get as much sleep as I should have at that age but I couldn’t think of myself doing anything else.”
He never truly found success on screen until Stranger Things, despite regularly auditioning for roles. “It was a different standard when it came to film and TV. Nothing really stuck. I just wasn’t being cast which is completely understandable.” For years, he felt theatre was destined to be his medium, and thrived on coping with the demands of schoolwork and theatre productions. “It’s hard for kids… it’s a lot of pressure,” he reflects. “It’s less about your talent and more about your consistency and professionalism.”
“[The fame] can be a little bit overwhelming but I’m consistently aware of how fortunate we all are”
Now he’s emerging from the other side of the Stranger Things factory facing an uncertain but exciting future. He’s just voiced a character in Andy Serkis’ animated take on George Orwell’s political allegory Animal Farm, playing Lucky, a piglet that didn’t feature in the original novel. Then he’s got a movie he shot with BriTANick, a comedic duo who wrote for Saturday Night Live. Following two college roommates who take an experimental drug then try to take possession of a much-needed fast-food order, its currently called The Untitled BriTANick Pizza Movie. “It’s the ultimate stoner comedy,” he smiles.
Beyond that, his ambitions range from a West End musical to a Wes Anderson movie (“that would be an absolute dream”). But for the moment its hard to see past the Stranger Things juggernaut. He’s been dealing with the fame the show brings and being recognised since he was 13 and he’s bracing himself for another wave. “I live in New York City so there’s not a day where it doesn’t really happen. There’s a scale that can be a little bit overwhelming but I’m consistently aware of how fortunate we all are.”
Intriguingly, the very final episode ‘The Rightside Up’ is getting a 350-screen limited cinema release in the US on December 31. He’s not yet sure if he’ll be able to join his friends on the night to see it in theatres. “I know I’m going to be down in Florida with my mum, so it might be hard for all of us to collectively go together. But I know I’m going to go see it wherever I am.”
For sure, he’s made friends for life, including Joe Keery, currently enjoying a musical moment in his other guise as Djo. Has he heard Djo’s new album The Crux Deluxe? “I listened to every one of his albums religiously,” he answers. “He’s one of my favourite musicians. He would be even if he wasn’t a friend of mine, because I think he’s brilliant. He’s got a sound and a drive. His success is so deserved and I think he deserves more.”
While Matarazzo has no plans to conquer Spotify (“No, no, I don’t play anything. I just sing”), the question is whether he will be able to escape the enormous shadow that Stranger Things has cast. When we meet, it’s just a few days shy of Halloween and he’s already seen people dressing up as Dustin online, after the season five trailer dropped. “I’ve already seen Trenchcoat Dustin as a costume. Very late ’80s. Which I think is cool.” He laughs at the thought. “I mean, the mullet’s coming back.”
It’d be no surprise if Trenchcoat Dustin followed him around for years to come. So what’s been his costume for this spooky season? “I didn’t pick one this year. I should have. I’ve never locked into the Halloween craze. It’s my sister’s favourite [time of year]. I don’t know why but she is obsessed. I’ve always half-assed my costumes for the most part… I play dress-up for a living anyway.”
‘Stranger Things’ season five volume one is available on Netflix from November 27