After officially kicking off the fifth and final season of Stranger Things with Thursday’s Los Angeles premiere, the team behind the sci-fi smash dropped some more hints about what’s to come at a For Your Consideration event on Saturday.
Millie Bobby Brown, Noah Schnapp, Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin, Gaten Matarazzo and Jamie Campbell Bower joined creators Ross and Matt Duffer and executive producer Shawn Levy for a conversation in Hollywood after awards voters were given an early look at the first episode of the new season.
Brown, who plays the super-powered Eleven, spoke about the physical work she put in this year, noting how for the past decade they’ve been doing the show, “I feel like the Duffers have been training me for this moment.” She added that Eleven typically has had quite emotional storylines and she’s sobbed on screen with nearly every member of the cast; this time around, though, “It was really exciting to be more of a resource this season, not just because of her powers but also her physical training and attributes that she’s put herself through.”
“It was really fun, I definitely channeled my inner Tom Cruise,” she continued, while also teasing, “I feel like Volume One only touches on what she’s been training for, and I’m really excited for everyone to see what that leads to.”
Schnapp, meanwhile, joked about his character Will Byers’ constant suffering — “I love when I get to smile in the show” because it is so rare — and explained after getting the scripts, he mapped out the whole season before shooting because “our show is so confusing” with so many storylines that film out of order. Ross Duffer deadpanned, “Good thing there’s not a season six or we’d be writing you out,” in response.
Betsy Paterson, Kyle Dixon, Jamie Campbell Bower, Caleb McLaughlin, Amy Parris, Millie Bobby Brown, Sarah Hindsgaul, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Shawn Levy, Ross Duffer, Gaten Matarazzo, Matt Duffer, Michael Stein and Craig Henighan.
Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images
The Duffers also spoke about this year’s new additions, with Linda Hamilton notably joining the cast. Ross explained, “We like to bring in the ’80s legends when we can, and obviously, we grew up huge fans of hers, Sarah Connor [in The Terminator] is a badass.” He continued that she is smart like Matthew Modine’s character Dr. Martin Brenner “who she’s replacing, but unlike, no offense to Modine and Paul Reiser [who also appeared in past seasons], she can shoot a gun and fight,” allowing for “our human villain to be physically intimidating as well as intellectually.”
Matt Duffer talked about bringing in an older actress, Nell Fisher, to play Holly Wheeler this season, which he noted wasn’t part of their initial plan but “as we were working on season five, we talked a lot about wanting to recapture some of the spirit of the first season” that was based around young kids. Pointing to his cast, he teased, “They’re old now, so we had to find an actual child to bring into the show.”
He continued by pointing out the old Hollywood adage to not work with kids or dogs, saying he only believed the latter to be true — which led to a discussion of how the Byers family had a dog in season one that the Duffers cut from later seasons. “We put a little grave up, he’s dead somehow,” Matt joked. “He just didn’t hit his mark.”
Kids, on the other hand, “It’s fun to throw them all together and just see what happens. It was really enjoyable to get that energy back into the show,” Matt Duffer continued, as Brown shot back, “Because we’ve lost it, apparently.”
Along with the cast conversation, the evening also featured a separate Q&A with costume designer Amy Parris, sound designer Craig Henighan, visual effects supervisor Betsy Paterson, hair department head Sarah Hindsgaul and composers Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein. The final season of Stranger Things is releasing on Netflix in three parts, dropping on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
