Gaten Matarazzo on the ‘Stranger Things’ Finale, Saying Goodbye to Dustin, and His Future

Maybe it’s because he can finally talk about, well, everything or maybe it’s the fact it’s the season of new beginnings, but there is a such a profound openness from the actor as he gets honest about his experience on the series, getting to play Dustin, and officially saying goodbye. But, as fate would have it, it has a funny way of bringing it all back full-circle for Gaten as he looks back on this tremendous step in his career. Cosmopolitan chatted with Gaten Matarazzo on January 2, just a few days after the finale, to see how it was all going down for the actor as he takes a final look back to Hawkins and the Upside Down.

Courtesy of Netflix

It’s been a long journey between filming and press. So, I do have to ask, is it just hitting you now since the finale is now out?

Yeah, it’s starting to settle more than it has and that’s really, really cool. It’s a little sad. I think it’s one of those things that I put off letting it settle because I kept giving new excuses. I’m like, Oh, it’s not really over because we still have the press tour after we finish filming. And, It’s not over because we only released Part One and Part Two. Now we’re at that point where there really isn’t much more in the process of making the show left to do. There’s like little loose end tie-ups of interviewing about the ending process and talking about the completion of it and the finale and where it ended up and seeing how people sit with it, but for the most part, it’s one of those things where you kind of just dust off your hands and say, The work here is done. You kind of just have to let it settle and sit with it.

What’s been great about it is that it’s been the best and most communicative wrapping up process that we’ve all had together. We’ve been consistently talking through it and sending daily updates of thoughts and love and and seeing each other more than we have in prior seasons. We see each other very frequently and luckily enough, at this point in our lives, have very easy access to each other. That’s been the biggest takeaway is how much closer we’ve all gotten through saying goodbye to it.

I’m sure the holidays and being among family and friends have also helped you through the process as well.

Oh yeah, absolutely! I’ve been getting texts from people who were either there from the beginning of the process or played a significant part of my life during the filming of the show to say, Hey, it’s been a second, but congrats on everything. Like teachers from high school, who helped me work out my school schedule while I worked on the third season, and others coming out of the woodwork. I’m realizing how many incredible people helped make this a seamless process and an enjoyable one and a normal one; as normal as it could be. It’s just lots of blasts of the past and it’s been really nice.

Victoria Stevens

It feels like one last catch-up! I do need to ask you, because this was such an emotional season for Dustin, what was it to act out this very angry and hurt version of him that we haven’t seen before?

It was unexpected to that level. I knew that there was going to be a jump after we finished up season four, because, if you remember, it really did just wrap up with him in just a terrible place. Matt and Ross Duffer told me going into it that, It’s going to be a hell of a lot different, so just be ready. I was always really grateful to be trusted with tackling that part of him, and especially in the last season, because it’s the last time you get to jump on this journey with everybody. He’s just a pissy kind of brat for a good chunk of it. He’s obviously going through a lot. It’s easy for a lot of people that were very supportive and loving to be understanding of him. But, there also is a lot of like, Damn. This is tough to watch. It’s tough to see somebody who you’re so used to seeing in a positive light kind of be on this journey.

Part of me kind of grieved the seasons prior. A part of me really wanted to be like that again and have fun and riff and jump into a really comfy space. And I remember I’d catch myself throughout this process being frustrated and being like, Man, I can’t believe I have to jump into a another grumpy place, another terrible place for him. He doesn’t want to be as angry as he is. These aren’t really controllable feelings. I think that’s something he learned throughout the process, is that despite his pain, he still has the ability to make choices. That’s the journey of the show.

And there’s kind of a really cool little, I guess you could call it a pump fake, of maybe Vecna’s turning this corner and acknowledging that he didn’t start in this place and a journey of choices brought him here. It’s a really cool little dynamic of, Is it gonna be like a a weird switcheroo Kylo Ren shift of, ‘Oh, I guess he’s good now.’ But it’s very cool that in that weird haze, he’s like, No, I’ve made these choices. And everybody, collectively, despite feeling bad for that initial journey for him still acknowledge that he’s killed people and his goal is to see the human race practically wiped out. Despite his kind of unfortunate beginnings, he still has to be responsible for his actions. That’s something that, weirdly enough, Dustin kind of comes to later on. I have the ability to decide how hard I am, act accordingly, and still keep the people that are important to me close to me. And he learns that and you see him kind of get to a better place in the coda.

Courtesy of Netflix

Considering the fact that this was the last season and time was already so limiting, was it harder to have this rift between Dustin and his friends as you were also preparing to say goodbye to everything?

That was harder, just because I love these guys so much and all I want to do is have as much fun with them as I can. If there was a really great big fun bit going on at the table reads, I would be really tempted to jump in. Sometimes I had to walk away and wander by myself for a little bit and kind of just see what that isolation felt like. I’m sure he does desire that fun still, but it feels as though he’s doing a disservice to his friend by engaging in it. So that was something that was fun to explore.

A lot of times, the way I would boost myself into a scene is by joking with everybody, because it kind of builds this rush of energy and adrenaline before jumping into what was always a very high paced type of character for me. There’s always different ways that you can take from your own experience and try to funnel that into what you’re doing. I think that’s always what I’ve tried to do.

It’s also very interesting cause in the midst of everything, he’s also the one whose finding out the truth about everything. He is also serving as this conduit for the audience as they slowly figure out the truth about the Upside Down and Vecna.

It’s really fun to do. It’s stressful, because I feel like if I don’t know what I’m talking about, then no one’s gonna know. I at least felt like I had to have a grasp of what I was talking about and not just memorize lines that I didn’t understand or else. He’s explaining that to the room. He’s explaining it to everybody watching. Without it, it would be so easy to be completely lost as to what the makeup of this world really looks like, so there really is a lot of pressure in that. I think approaching it with enthusiasm and excitement over it, rather than fear, is the best way to do it.

Dustin’s friends really do gravitate towards him when he is enthusiastic and excited about figuring something out. Because, as scary as everything is, I think Dustin secretly has so much fun trying to save the world. Despite how high stakes is, despite his friends being in danger, his life being in danger, him losing friends through that process. There might even be a little guilt there, but I think it’s literally the most fun he’s ever had. Mr. Clark says in the first season, “Science is pretty neat, but it’s not very forgiving.” And that’s a perfect embodiment of how Dustin looks at it. He’s aware of how scary it is, but he would be lying if he didn’t say it was not so fucking cool.

Courtesy of Netflix

We saw little bits of him in college in the show’s ending, but it still left things a little ambiguous. Did you ever talk with the writers about Dustin’s future?

We’ve had conversations about what it might look like and what like the immediate future looked like, where he went to school… A lot of it has to do with little personal things to make sure that we all felt tied together. Like really nice and fun little wink winks, like Joyce and Hopper end up going to Montauk at the end of the show, which is where the show was originally going to take place and was the original title of the show when it first was being developed.

As we were looking up places that Dustin would have probably ended up going to college, it turns out that in the late 80s to early 90s, Georgia Tech had a really great engineering program. And we thought that’d be really cool, because Georgia Tech is actually only about a 10 minute drive from Screen Gems Studios where we filmed the show. It’s about a nine-hour drive from Atlanta to Indianapolis, where Hawkins is supposed to be around. We shot those little bits of where he is at school at Oglethorpe University, here near Atlanta, in Brookhaven. A really cool little bit about that little spot is the building where we shot was across the street from the first building I lived in when we first moved to Atlanta.

Oh, whoa!

So many weird little coincidences. I hadn’t been back to Brookhaven in like 10 years. I moved to a different place in the second season. I think the building that I lived at isn’t even there anymore, but it was such a cool way to wrap up. I was in my first neighborhood when I moved to Georgia, so it was so cool.

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It’s a very meta way of fate and the writers helping you say goodbye and bringing you back full circle.

Totally! They wanted to make sure that they did and they were fully okay with kind of being a little meta in their goodbye. Because, as much as these characters are saying goodbye to Hawkins, we as actors and them, as writers and creators, are saying goodbye to the people that have invested their time and energy into into the show. Without people being so enthusiastic, there is no show. So there is a lot of us just straight up saying goodbye to the people watching it. I think it’s very bold and earned and deserved.

And also helped you say goodbye as well.

It helps like crazy, yeah, being able to fully dive into the emotional heart strings of it all, and prioritize the memories and little things like that. Wrapping up on the right scene at the right time. Making sure that we didn’t just do some crazy, weird stunt insert to wrap the show up. There’s, like, no chance we are doing that. We’re wrapping it and we’re finishing where we started. We’re bringing family back in and that was really important to them.

That shows you that Matt and Ross have the biggest heart and love for this show, and understand that approaching this as such as basically the longest summer camp in the world was the most important part of it for everybody involved.

Courtesy of Netflix

Speaking of it being the longest summer camp ever, it also feels like this was the greatest acting school for you. In addition to your theater experience, you got to do drama, comedy, special effects, stunts, and more that really gave you a lot of tools for the future.

It’s incredibly rare and that’s something that I still am baffled by. I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of projects like this—most of all, without a doubt, this show—and learn everything it’s taught me. I’m still very, very young, and a lot of people who approach this job as a career start doing so at my age when they leave college and decide they’re going to go and jump into an industry like this. It is notoriously competitive. There’s so many people that want to give it a go, and so little going on. There’s so little opportunities for a job that has such demand and that’s always been what’s so hard about it.

Approaching a career in it and being able to consistently be a part of it, in this context, is the greatest honor in the world. The best film school you could ask for is a set. The best acting school you would ask for is consistent work. And that’s not easy to come by. And it’s not easy to come by at the age in which we get it. It’s so much easier said than done. So much luck goes with it. Hard work always brings you there, but there are so many people that are also working hard that haven’t been able to find that one. I don’t deny how incredible that is.

You mentioned in a previous interview that your biggest advice to child actors is to doing for fun for as long as you can.

That’s why I get so excited about doing it. It’s because I still have so much fun doing it. I started doing it for a career very, very young, without really understanding that that’s what you’re signing up for. I’m signing a contract. I know I’m getting paid and working. I know I’m a union-member actor. But, I was only nine-years-old. You don’t really know that you’re hunkering down for pursuing a career at that age. And I’m really lucky to have grown into a person who loves doing it still, because it’s very likely that a lot of people go through their childhood working as an actor and then go, Oh, this isn’t really isn’t for me. This isn’t what I find pride in doing. Which is fine! That’s so good to learn and it’s so good to do! I wish there was less of a stigma around child actors who decidedly either take a break or stop acting as if that means that they didn’t succeed in that world. A lot of times, it really just is people discovering that, in their adulthood, that’s not the path that was for them and that can be a really weird adjustment.

And so I say to do it for fun as long as you can to ensure that you actually have fun doing it. A lot of people fall in love with the idea of it, rather than the day-to-day of it. It’s a lot of waiting around. It’s a lot of rejection. It’s a lot of work put in for not a lot of outcome. I acknowledge this is rich coming from somebody who has been able to have consistent success doing it for my age, which is very much luck based. But if that’s not something that you enjoy the process of, and enjoy the challenge of, it’s going to be hard to maintain consistency. Do as much community theater. Make your own movies, write your own plays, and see if it’s something that brings you joy and love, and then worry about representation. I will never tell somebody not to pursue this.

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You have two new projects coming out soon. One is a film from comedy duo BriTANicK on Hulu and another is voice work in Andy Serkis’s upcoming animated version of Animal Farm. I do have to ask, what you manifesting next? Selfishly, I would love to see you in Little Shop of Horrors off-Broadway.

Oh man, I love that show! When it comes to theater, I want to jump into something new. Maybe an original character or a work that hasn’t been adapted yet. I’ve been able to kind of teeter my way back into it. I joined as Jared in Dear Evan Hansen, but it was a run that was already in motion and it was a supporting role that was kind of dipping my toes into a real challenge. Then Sweeney Todd was a much more weighted experience of building up that production. But it’s a production that was built to succeed in the sense of that it’s a very famous show, a very famously brilliant show, and a part that I’ve known since I was 12-years-old. So, now, I think a new challenge would be jumping into something that isn’t necessarily built for immediate success. Something kind of new or weird and kind of hard to pitch. I would also love to do a play, because singing stresses me the fuck out.