“Stranger Things” Season 5 is the end of an era, wrapping up the Duffer brothers’ riff on the works of ’80s icons like Steven Spielberg and Stephen King that turned into a pop culture phenomenon. For 10 years, audiences have watched a gang of misfits from Hawkins, Indiana—Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin), Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), and Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink), along with the telepathic escaped experiment Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown)—do battle astride bikes with the supernatural residents of the alternate dimension known as the Upside Down.
Before the debut of the final season’s first batch of episodes on Nov. 26, we sat down with Wolfhard, Matarazzo, and McLaughlin to discuss their favorite cinematic endings, coming to terms with the show ending in the days after wrap, and their advice for young actors.
What is your favorite ending of all time, film or TV? And how does it compare to the ending of “Stranger Things”?
Gaten Matarazzo: I don’t know how much it equates to “Stranger Things,” but one of my favorite endings to a movie is “Once,” and it’s one that I watched recently. I love it because it’s seemingly not very movie ending-ish. I mean, spoilers for the ending of “Once,” if anybody hasn’t seen it, but they don’t get together, and they don’t really see each other. They don’t even have a really good, satisfying ending, because the last time they talk to each other, it’s like, “OK, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then she has to go and leave for the Czech Republic on a whim, and they never see each other again. It’s so weirdly not cinematic, but it hits so much harder because of it. I think it’s brilliant, and it encapsulates that nice little unexpected moment that they had so well. I think it’s a perfect ending for that movie.
Finn Wolfhard: I like the ending of “Uncut Gems,” where Adam Sandler gets shot in the face.
Oh, so does that relate to the ending of “Stranger Things”?
FW: OK, so that has absolutely nothing to do with “Stranger Things.”
When you’ve rewatched past seasons, how much do you see the character growing versus seeing yourself growing?
GM: Anytime I watch myself, I’m like, What was I thinking while doing this? And I usually can remember quite clearly. Then I find that frustrating, because I’m worrying about [why did I] have that mentality, when I should have been focused on one thing or another. I’m sure I’ll do it with this season. I’m sure I’ll do it with pretty much most things I do, because that’s kind of just how this works. You just grow and learn about yourself and how you would approach something differently. But I also don’t think I would go back or change anything.
FW: It is sometimes really hard watching yourself, because it’s like: I know your tricks. I know your angle. I know the choices you’re making. You can’t get away with this.
Caleb McLaughlin: I see it in double time, I do. Going back to what Gaten was saying, I look at the decisions I made in that moment, because of where I was in my life. You either judge it or you commend yourself for it. You can do both. I feel like those were the years I was most critical of myself, my adolescence. I look back on it sometimes and I’m upset. I’m like, Dude, you were just a cute kid. Like, damn, I really wish I was in the moment, in those moments. But that’s what’s rich about the show, because it does show that growth. It does show us being nerds, the misfits of the world. And I do see that uncomfortability that I had growing up. But I feel that people see that undertone and can relate to it. So I give myself grace in that.
Courtesy Netflix
You’ve spent a lot of the lead-up to Season 5 telling the story of how it felt to wrap your final scene. But what was the day after wrapping like for each of you?
GM: It was kind of sobering. I went for a bit of a walk to enjoy where we were staying, the neighborhood that we lived in for a year, because it really was a great neighborhood that we grew to love quite a bit. I went and grabbed a cup of coffee and just walked around and ended up getting in a conversation with our neighbor. And it was one of those conversations, like, Man, I wish I talked to you more throughout the year.
Just looking around at little things. We prioritized not taking anything for granted. We had a whole year to enjoy it, and we did enjoy it. We really grabbed that year by the horns and really made the most of it. But even still, inevitably, you’re looking around like: Ah, I never ate there, and I never did this. Packing up the house is tremendously sad. It was a pretty gray morning, too. It was tough, but it was very clear how it’s worth it. You want to be sad on a day like that.
FW: I didn’t know how to take it, honestly. I didn’t really know how I was feeling. I wanted to put a label on it, but then at a certain point, I kind of threw my hands up. I was like, I don’t know how I’m feeling right now. It’s funny, because I remember that two days after, I was like, That was the saddest thing ever. I don’t know if I will ever get over that. Now I look back at that day and I’m like, Oh, that was maybe the best day ever. Having the perspective is really, really great.
Then we saw each other, like, two months afterwards, and I think that maybe too is a weird part about ending a show like this after 10 years. At least, for me, there was a bit of anxiety around, like, is it gonna be the same when we see each other? It’ll never be the same in the sense of just being on set and stuff, but then we see each other, and it feels exactly the same.
CM: When we wrapped, I actually got on a flight to New York to celebrate the holidays with my family. It was so weird for me, honestly, after the final chapter to this world that I was in for so long, and I was saying goodbye to it. I remember just looking at everyone, and being like, You don’t know what I’m going through inside. I’m not gonna lie, I was listening to some ’80s music. I just wanted to be in the feeling. Usually, when you feel sad, you try to avoid it, but it was a good sad. It was like, I want to experience this. I want to cry. I was tearing up on the plane, like, Wow, I’ve really loved this; I love that we were able to experience this and end it. I think that was honestly one of, like [Finn] said, the best moments in my life. Because if [the show] kept going, you wouldn’t appreciate what was. I think appreciating what was is more rich than being in it.
GM: I drove home, because I had my cats with me and a bunch of furniture, so I wanted to go and drive back up. I stopped to fill up the tank before hitting the road; I left early as shit in the morning. And then, right before I left, I ran into this guy I saw, like, twice at a bar. We just talked, and that was weirdly the coolest way to send it off, is to see a neighborhood guy right before leaving. It felt like a weird little moment of, like, “Bye, Atlanta.”
Courtesy Netflix
What is your No. 1 piece of advice for young actors?
GM: You have so much time to decide to pursue acting as a career. Do it for fun as long as you can. Do local theater. Make your own movies. Make it a hobby. Make friends. Enjoy it, because there are always going to be opportunities to jump in and make it your work. We’ve been lucky enough to love what we do. But we also know a lot of people who are our age, who have a lot of similar situations, who I think really resent the process of taking on the brunt and responsibility of making a career out of something when they were so young. We got very lucky, and others haven’t.
Just develop a love for it. Because, also, you could end up leaving college and be like, I don’t necessarily know if that’s what I want to do for work. Absolutely put everything you have into it, if it’s something that you want, but do it for fun.
FW: It needs to start as a passion. A calling.
CM: I mean, for me, I didn’t want to be an actor when I was growing up. I wanted to be a bodybuilder; I wanted to play basketball, to play football; I wanted to have a garage band. Everything under the sun. But acting was something I never thought would come about. It just ended up being there, and it did call me. I would always give that advice, like Finn said: Let it be a passion. Don’t do it for other people. Don’t think, how am I going to be seen? Don’t just say, I want to be on this big stage and look like Tom Cruise. Which is a great person to be. But do it for the passion.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.