‘Stranger Things 5’ Star Gaten Matarazzo Breaks Down Finale

SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the series finale of Netflix‘s Stranger Things.

Gaten Matarazzo is still processing his farewell to Stranger Things, but of all the emotions he’s feeling as the series finale arrives on Netflix, the biggest one, he says, is relief.

The fifth and final season wrapped production in December 2024 after an 11-month shoot, and he’s been keeping more than a few secrets since then about what direction the show was headed in.

“I’m like, ‘I want to talk about it so bad,’ and now I get to, which is very nice,” he tells Deadline in an interview just over a day after the finale’s release.

The episode reveals that only does his character Dustin survive the horrors of the Upside Down, he and his friends finally get to work through some of their traumas, graduate high school and focus once more on the life in front of them, full of possibilities now that the world isn’t on the brink of ending.\

Dustin is riddled with grief when we meet him in Season 5, about a year and a half after the events of the Season 4 finale, when his confidante Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) sacrificed himself to give the rest of the Hawkins kids a chance to escape the Upside Down. The tension this causes comes to a head in Volume 2, when he picks another fight with Steve (Joe Keery) that eventually leads to an emotional catharsis where he admits how scared he’s been to lose another friend.

The resolution gives way for Dustin to find more positive expressions of his grief, like giving the graduation speech Eddie once daydreamed of doing and choosing to help his friends hold onto the hope that “maybe it turned out okay” despite the loss and trauma they’ve all experienced over the last few years, Matarazzo says.

In the interview below, the actor spoke with Deadline about his final days on set, his journey through Dustin’s grief in Season 5, and his thoughts on whether Dustin really believes that Eleven could still be alive.

DEADLINE: How are you feeling now that the finale has been released?

GATEN MATARAZZO: A lot of relief. I like keeping secrets, but to a fault. They bubble up. I’m like, ‘I want to talk about it so bad,’ and now I get to, which is very nice.

DEADLINE: Last time we spoke, it was for Volume 1, and so you teased a little about the emotional arc that was coming for Dustin. In Volume 2, his resentment and anger really comes to a head in that fight with Steve. What was it like working with Joe Keery this season on such an emotionally complicated journey for Dustin?

MATARAZZO: Oh, man, it’s there was a lot of stress involved, especially as we were getting closer, and we started reading the stuff within Volume 2. I was like, ‘Great. Okay, cool. So now the entire year is gonna be built around me being stressed about this fight and this blow up afterwards.’ Even the stuff in [Episode] 7, where we finally kind of settle into it, there’s a lot of nerves going in. There’s a lot of stakes. I love this kid a lot. I love Dustin. I love playing him. I love watching him grow and growing alongside of him, and it breaks my heart to see what a place that he’s in. Also, for it being the last [season], I was inevitably going to grieve that fun-loving side of him and being able to tap into it, because I had to jump into something new and find something something different. But, knowing that it would be with Joe is this most soothing part of it, understanding that I would get to do so alongside somebody who — not only who I trust, but who I’ve seen take on challenges like this and do so with seeming ease.

He is such a grounded, thoughtful actor, and you can look him in the eyes and fully settle in yourself. He’s very giving. Oh man, it’s hard to explain what acting alongside somebody like him is like, but I think that also comes with being just a good friend of his and him being a good friend of mine. That makes a process like that a hell of a lot easier to where we have the ability to show the ugly parts of ourselves to each other and not feel the awkward pressure of like, ‘I barely know you, so now I have to go and and hug you and cry in your arms.’ I don’t think I could do that with a stranger. Thankfully, it’s somebody as capable as Joe, so it made a big difference for sure.

DEADLINE: As you say, it is a much different side of Dustin than we are used to seeing. Was it challenging for you to tap into that?

MATARAZZO: It was something that, at least I was warned about, which is very nice. My biggest challenge there…it wasn’t necessarily digging into grief. I feel like that was something that a lot of actors are expecting to tap into at some point. Part of acting is you’re dealing with [and] showing the scariest parts of being human and doing so on a regular basis, because that’s what people are interested in seeing. That’s what people are drawn towards, because maybe it’s hard to see that and feel that in a day to day in your own life. That’s why I was drawn to acting in the first place, is to be able to do that on a regular basis and learn about it in a low pressure situation where you’re kind of given the ability to do it without judgment, which is very nice and really cool. The hardest part was doing so and still being Dustin. I didn’t just want to be a different guy. I still wanted to feel like him, and I wanted to still show people that there was a part of him that was recognizable. Otherwise, I don’t think people would really be engaged. Who’s this? This is a new person. I really wanted to make sure that people still felt drawn to the kid that they grew up meeting and knowing.

DEADLINE: What parts of Dustin do you felt like you were clinging to in order to make him feel recognizable through that?

MATARAZZO: That’s hard to say. A lot of that’s in the script. A lot of that’s given to you before you go in. So a lot of that work is done in the writers room, and it’s just your job to do justice there. You kind of tap into loss that you’ve experienced throughout your life at some points. And I’ve lost people. I’ve lost people suddenly…you go into a process of remembering what that can feel like, and what’s overwhelming is not just how overwhelmingly sad it is, but, really, how much rage and how much melancholy there is around it. That’s something that I wanted to approach a bit there is that grieving isn’t necessarily always just hiding in your room and blubbering into your pillow. Even after a week or two, you don’t really have that in you anymore. So you find different outlets, and anger is one of them, and stress.

Now that it’s all wrapped up, I think specifically why he took it out on Steve is, a lot of times, it’s so much easier to say goodbye on bad terms than it is on good ones, because you really don’t want to let go of people. Even breakups, it’s so much harder to break up with somebody when you guys are standing there [on] great [terms], and you have respect for each other. I feel like losing people is kind of similar, and maybe if Steve didn’t make it out of this, it would be easier to deal with that if I wasn’t so engaged and invested in that relationship. Maybe cutting him out would make losing him easier. That was like vital, right? I think for Dustin specifically, because I think losing another friend would be too much, so maybe him not being a friend anymore would make it easier.

DEADLINE: Having gone through all of that with the character, how did you feel about Dustin’s graduation speech? He’s finally honoring Eddie in a positive way.

MATARAZZO: Exactly, that’s the way to properly [do it]. Dustin is convinced throughout the whole process that being miserable is the way to service a friend or to remember him, because if he’s not living through his grief and he’s not hurting, then he’s not loving and he’s not missing him properly. He believes that trying to move on and be happy and joke around and make friends and live his life, it feels like he would think of it as a disservice to him, whereas, of course, we know it’s distinctly the opposite. Nobody who loves you would want you to live miserably for them. That would be the scariest thing in the world. That’s something he learns and learns to be excited about. Now, he’s entered a place in his life where he can tell stories about him and listen to his music and show pictures of him to people and talk about him with new friends and reminisce and do so smiling and laugh about it and not have to be on the verge of tears with it. That’s a new part of grief that’s actually quite beautiful, and it’s weirdly fun and refreshing to enter, because it’s inevitable.

You’re going to have to find a way. These people don’t come back, and so you have to find a way to be okay with that. If you’re not okay with that, accept it. It’s a beautiful thing that Hopper says to Mike at the end of the show of ‘You don’t have to like their choice or understand their choice,’ which is also kind of what Eddie did. Eddie made a choice to run back in, whether it was smart or not or even necessary. That’s still a question as to whether or not it was even necessary for him to do it, which is also gutting. Maybe it was completely preventable, but learning to accept and be okay with understanding [that] it is what happened…you can’t change it, so you might as well do the best you can and live the best you can. [That] is the best takeaway from that, and I think that’s what all of them inevitably have to do. Now they’ve all lost a friend.

DEADLINE: The final scene in the basement at the Wheelers’ is so special. Dustin is the first one to say, ‘I believe’ after Mike’s speech. What did filming that scene mean to you?

MATARAZZO: Oh man, yeah, we anticipated that all day. It was really hard to know how we’re going to deliver that, because you want to distance yourself from as much cheese in that moment as you can, I think. The audience can kind of leave it up to interpretation for them, whatever works for them as to Eleven’s whereabouts, as to whether she’s alive or not, whatever makes you feel better about the show is fully okay for you to do. That’s something that I’ve already seen is kind of a 50/50 split amongst people who’ve watched it, which I think is perfect. That’s exactly how it should be. There should be a debate about it. There should be discourse. There should be no ‘Here’s why this, here’s why this.’ It’s a great way for people to consistently engage in the show. But…I’m not convinced that there is a consensus amongst the group as to whether or not they agree. I don’t know if there is. I don’t know if they all believe, right? I think I would rather leave Dustin’s mindset on that more personal and up to people’s interpretation, even though my mind is kind of made up as to what he feels. If they do believe, it’s so special that they do, and if they don’t, it’s so kind of them to give them to give that to their friends, right? That’s a really special way to wrap it up.

DEADLINE: I like the idea that they are allowing Mike to believe it, even if maybe they don’t. Maybe they’re ‘letting’ themselves believe it, too, even knowing deep down that it probably isn’t true. Lots of layers there.

MATARAZZO: And it’s not sweeping it under the rug, I don’t think. It’s just airing it out. It’s acknowledging collectively that this is how he is deciding to cope with this. Whether he believes it or not, maybe he believes it the least out of them, who knows? But it’s very kind of them to give to each other that that bit of love and hope, and at least the idea that maybe it turned out okay. I think it’s really beautiful.

DEADLINE: That was the final scene you all shot, right?

MATARAZZO: Yeah, that was the last day.

DEADLINE: What was that experience like for you?

MATARAZZO: The best way to do it. It’s in the same set, that same table, that same style…we leave it right where we picked it up. The first day of production on Stranger Things, was the day in the basement for the first D&D scene. That was day one for everybody. It seemed only fitting that the last day wrapped up the way that it started. Matt and Ross, they insisted on that happening. I’m sure there was back and forth from ADs and line producers and people, ‘Yeah, maybe we got to do this, because we didn’t get this finished up.’ And I think they were like, ‘F*ck that. No chance. There’s no way we wrap it up with anything else.’ That was very important to them and important to us, and it paid off.

DEADLINE: I heard that you went to a theater to see the finale with fans…in disguise? How was that?

MATARAZZO: I did. It was wonderful. I just wanted to make sure I can hear people see it for the first time. You know what I mean? I just wanted to feel an energy. I wanted to see people in T-shirts and in friend groups. It’s not something we’ve been able to experience before, seeing people experience the show for the first time. That’s really, really special, and it’s kind of the only opportunity we’ve ever — I mean, I guess I could have at some point I could’ve gone to a random house and been, like, ‘I want to see this,’ but that would have been weird. That would have been odd.

So, everybody was given the opportunity to go and experience it together, collectively, and understand that there’s something so special about the community. That is a theater and the importance that it brings to movie making and cinema. There’s obviously a very glaring juxtaposition, being a huge streamer and a catalyst for TV and film being watched from home, and the convenience of that. Matt and Ross really did push. It was very important to them that this is experienced to the scale in which they always intended for it to be. I’m just happy that it happened. I’m happy that they were able to make it work.

DEADLINE: You’ve worked on this show for a decade of your life. It’s so rare for shows to continue for so long, and particularly in the case of Stranger Things, for much of it there was not a question about whether it would end unceremoniously. It was very consistent in a rare way. How formative was that for you as a young actor?

MATARAZZO: It’s something that I know actively not to take for granted and to acknowledge how special and rare a process like that really is. Because quality isn’t even a measure of whether something runs for a while or not. There’s so many great shows that, for one reason or another, whether it’s a scheduling issue, whether it’s a budgeting issue, a ratings issue, they struggle to ensure seeing their show through the way it was supposed to. Once we got into the groove of [Stranger Things], after our second season, going into [Season] 3, it seemed like it was very clear that Matt and Ross were going to be able to make whatever decisions they wanted to make to see the show finish the way they want to see it finish. That is so special and so rare, and it’s going to be very hard to acknowledge the fact that that’s not something that will ever, probably, come again to the scale in which it did. That’s something I’m honored to have been a part of and something I’m sure I’ll look back on and be like, ‘Yeah, this was crazy.’

DEADLINE: What are you looking forward to now?

MATARAZZO: Oh, man. I’m looking forward to not knowing what’s next. That’s something I would like to optimistically look at. That’s something that also is a source of a lot of anxiety, because I’ve been very used to, like you said, having consistency in what I’ve done in this show. Whether things dry out between seasons, or whether I don’t like a project that I do or it doesn’t really mesh the way I wanted it to, at least I can go back into another [season of Stranger Things] and get a groove back going. But now it really is a matter of just deciding what’s next and shaping up what I would like my career to look like, and I’m not sure what that is yet, and I think it’s just a matter of step by step understanding. I’m not too worried about a five-year plan, a 10-year plan. I would like to spend this time looking directly in front of me and seeing what comes up and what opportunities fall my way, and maybe even jumping into things where I can potentially create my own opportunities in some way. I don’t really know what that would entail or would look like, but I’m excited to not know.

DEADLINE: Are there any particular opportunities that would intrigue you? Whether that’s a genre or character archetype you’d want to explore, or perhaps stepping into a role off camera?

MATARAZZO: Yeah, that’s a good question. I really am not concerned genre-wise. If it’s something that looks like it’s going to challenge me, then that’s something I’m interested in. If it looks like a learning experience, then I’m interested. A lot of times things will come through like, ‘This would be really fun. I’m sure it would fill time nicely. I think I’m comfortable in that type of part.’ Usually, when I see things like that, it’s something I probably will not take. Also, I must acknowledge the fact that it’s very rare that working actors have the opportunity to be able to choose what they want their career to look like, to shape their career in the way they want to represent themselves.

The show has given me the consistency and work and financial ability to be able to make that decision of something coming through and saying, ‘I don’t need to do that right now. I’m fine. I’ll wait it off and wait for the next thing to come around.’ That’s not how working as an actor usually is. You take what you can get and you just grind and consistently do as much as you can, because you never these opportunities aren’t guaranteed no matter what you’re doing and for how consistently you do it. It’s a freelance career, and I’m very lucky to be in a position where I can choose what I want to do and what I don’t. That’s something I will cherish and not take for granted going forward.