If the countdown to Stranger Things 5 has been exasperating for you, fret not because it seems like even the series' stars are feeling that way, too.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Stranger Things star Gaten Matarazzo opened up about the series' long anticipated upcoming fifth and final season and admitted that the cast has also suffered with the delays. Still, he, at least, has grown to appreciate the extra time.
Matarazzo admitted that while last year he was on team "let's get to it" when it came to filming Stranger Things, things have taken a bit of a turn as the end approaches.
"I've always been anxious to do it and I love to do it, so any delay in the process is certainly frustrating. But now that we are getting towards the end of our filming process for the fifth season, yeah, I'm asking for a Time-Turner," Matarazzo admitted.
"It's been a pretty jarring thing to realize how quickly it all flew by," he added. "I remember so many things from that first season so vividly as if it was yesterday. We were so young, and it was such a weird, wild experience that it kind of blended together. So it's not that I remember the process of filming season one incredibly sharply, but there are a few distinct things that feel like they just happened."
22-year-old Matarazzo, who was just 13 when the first season premiered, also admitted it's going to be, well, strange when the series ends.
"At this point, I've almost been doing Stranger Things longer than I haven't," he said. "It's taken about a decade of my life and it's the most formative decade of my life. So I'll always be really grateful, and coming to terms with letting that go is increasingly difficult, for sure, in a work sense and in a life sense. You can always expect that next season, work-wise and emotionally. So it's going to be a different adjustment and I can't wait to see what happens next."
Previously, Millie Bobby Brown had also opened up about the series and how long it's taken to film, admitting she was "ready to wrap up." She said: "I feel like there's a lot of the story that's been told now, and we know of it, it's been in our lives for a very long time. But I'm very ready to say goodbye to this chapter of my life and open new ones up. "However, she added she'll always be "really grateful" for the show.
When asked if Stranger Things season 5 will be the "biggest, darkest, scariest" we've seen the show get, like cast and crew have already teased, Matarazzo admitted that "that's the goal."
"The one consistency of this show is that it just grows every year in scale and size and in the message that they want to bring," he continued, "so this season is not different in the slightest, and I knew that they had prepped that, initially. They said, 'Hey, this one is going to be really, really big. We're not going to candy-coat it: it's a full year shoot.' And that led to a big reaction of, like, 'Oh, so we're really going for it.' So we have been [going for it] and we still are. I'm excited for people to see it."
Matarazzo kept teasing details, sharing that season 5 of Stranger Things will "highlight the characters that we've known and loved so much from day one."
"I think everybody in the show can be expected to be paired differently from what we've come to expect. It elevates the character work quite a lot and gives everybody a lot of fun opportunities. So across the board, that may be happening, and maybe less so with Dustin, but that's been fun to explore, too," he added.
While we wait to see what form that takes, we have collated everything we know so far about Stranger Things season 5 so you don't miss an update.
