Being part of the 10-year journey of the Duffer Brothers’ Netflix game-changer, Stranger Things, is no small achievement—something that’s not lost on the cast, many of whom joined the series as kids.
In an extended conversation with Variety, the ensemble and creative minds behind Stranger Things discussed the powerful emotional reactions they had to their last days working on the pop culture phenomenon. And while they weren’t able to discuss any major plot points, they did talk about what it was like making the final season. One thing each story had in common? There were lots of tears.
Charlie Heaton, who plays Jonathan Byers, shared that Noah Schnapp, who plays Jonathan’s brother Will, broke the dam at the table read. “I was sitting in front of Noah and Finn [Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler]. I assumed it might get emotional. But 20 minutes in—and we’re not even a third into the script—Noah is bawling his eyes out, like deep sobs. And then Finn was crying. That really set everyone off.”
Wolfhard said, “It’s going to be interesting if that [footage] ever comes out, because it’ll be pretty embarrassing. The whole thing is just crying. I was like, ‘I’m not going to cry. I’m going to feel very normal, and it’s going to be great.’ And then halfway through, I just started totally bawling my eyes out.”
Even the villainous Vecna was moved to tears, despite attending over Zoom. “Just because I’ve been watching these people go through this emotional experience and thinking about how much this show has been there for people, I started to cry,” Jamie Campbell Bower said. “All I could say to Matt and Ross [Duffer] was, ‘Thank you. Thank you for making this such a huge part of so many people’s lives.’”
The river of tears continued through the actual shooting of the final season. “We were actually able to structure it so every actor’s last day was their last scene,” Matt Duffer said, which gave the farewells even more weight.
“It really amps up the emotion of the moment and that day,” shared Natalia Dyer, who plays kick-ass journalist and Mike’s big sister Nancy. “It almost felt a little masochistic and indulgent—but in the best way possible.”
Schnapp recalled what it was like being there on the last day of filming for his on-screen mom, played by Winona Ryder. “I was holding on to her, just sobbing. I didn’t want to say goodbye. I did not expect it to hit me so hard. I realized after that how important that relationship was to me. She really was a second mother to me growing up, and not having this show to keep us together was really hard.”
Eleven herself, played by Millie Bobby Brown, couldn’t keep it together either. “I bawled more than I expected I would,” she said. “While I was at the point personally and professionally for the show to come to an end, I realized in that moment the finality was so real and I was maybe not emotionally prepared.”
Caleb McLaughlin and Gaten Matarazzo—along with Wolfhard and Schnapp, Stranger Things‘ original D&D kiddos—also took it very hard.
McLaughlin shared, “I knew I was gonna cry because I kept asking everyone the last week, ‘You gonna cry tomorrow? I want to know if you’re gonna cry! Because I’m not.’ I was probably the first person to cry, and didn’t stop crying.”
Wolfhard described his reaction at the end: “I remember looking at everyone and saying, ‘Let’s not go out. Let’s just be with each other as long as we possibly can in this moment before we go out.’ Because then it becomes about everyone. It’s not just our thing anymore. It’s not just us.”
Schnapp continued the thought, “We were just sitting there, kind of huddled up, hugging and crying for a solid 10 minutes of just silence—all these people outside waiting for us. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”
Matarazzo added, “As many tears as there were—certainly on my part, on a day like that—it really did feel like a big party to celebrate the accomplishment that was this show in its entirety. And being able to be there from start to finish is a really cool perspective that I share with only a few members of the cast. They gave us a family in that show.”
Stranger Things returns to Netflix November 26.
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