Stranger Things’ Gaten Matarazzo on Living With Costar Finn Wolfard

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Gaten Matarazzo knows how to turn his space upside down.

The actor from Stranger Things shared that he and his co-star Finn Wolfhard lived together for about a year while filming the last season of the Netflix show. It wasn’t long before their place became messy and disorganized.

Gaten described living with his ‘Stranger Things’ castmates as feeling like a typical college experience. He jokingly told Jesse Tyler Ferguson on the ‘Dinner’s on Me’ podcast that after a few months of living together, their place would become pretty messy.

The 23-year-old described being very close to his 22-year-old friend, Finn, but explained that their strong connection was actually the reason they struggled to keep things tidy.

We just naturally fell into the same rhythm, he explained. Because we’d been friends for so long and were so comfortable with each other, we didn’t feel the need to push each other or set expectations. We figured, ‘Oh well, we can deal with it later,’ and just went with the flow.

Filming the last episodes of the show made the pair realize how difficult it was to coordinate social plans during their breaks.

Gaten remembered that when they made plans to go out, people would often offer to come over first. But both he and the other person would firmly say, ‘Absolutely not – stay at least 10 feet away from our house!’

Thankfully, Gaten and Finn improved at keeping their shared living space clean as their time as roommates went on, and more importantly, they stayed friends.

He explained that living with a close friend is always a gamble. It can strain or even end a friendship if things don’t go well, because it changes the relationship. However, if both people are mature, they can recognize when it’s not working and prioritize the friendship by agreeing to live separately. In his case, it turned out to be a positive experience.

Although the popular series has finished filming, the young actors—Gaten, Finn, Millie Bobby Brown, Noah Schnapp, and Caleb McLaughlin—remain close friends and stay in touch through a group chat.

Millie recently told Will Marfuggi of TopMob News that they’re constantly trying to get together. She explained that it usually involves them simply asking each other about availability and location: ‘When and where can we meet?’

The fifth and final season of Stranger Things is now available on Netflix! The first four episodes are streaming now, with the last three releasing on December 25th and the series finale on December 31st. Continue reading for more details about the show.

Before creating Stranger Things, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer worked on M. Night Shyamalan’s TV series Wayward Pines. Their initial idea for the show was actually called Montauk.

As someone who’s seen a lot of projects come to life, let me tell you, getting people to agree on a title can be tough. It’s amazing how fixated we get on our initial ideas! I remember when the creators of Stranger Things first proposed that title back in 2016, they actually had a hard time getting others to warm up to it. It just goes to show you, even a brilliant title needs a little time to click with everyone.

Oh my gosh, you won’t BELIEVE this! The Duffers – the brilliant minds behind everything, obviously – originally wanted to film the whole show on Long Island! Can you imagine?! But apparently, it just wasn’t practical, logistically. It’s so sad, Long Island would have been perfect, but I guess sometimes even geniuses have to compromise. Still, they’re the best, and I trust their decisions, even if it means we didn’t get scenes filmed there!

Matt told The Hollywood Reporter they chose Montauk as a filming location because of its beautiful coastline, its connection to the setting of Jaws (which is their favorite movie), and the overall cool vibe. However, they quickly realized shooting on Long Island during the winter would be too difficult and costly.

Atlanta ultimately became the home base for production.

Before Netflix decided to air the show, nearly 20 other networks rejected it, according to Vulture. Executives at those networks worried viewers wouldn’t connect with a series led by four child actors.

4. To play Eleven, then 12-year-old Millie Bobby Brown had to say goodbye to her hair.

In 2018, at PaleyFest, the actress described shaving her head as the most liberating experience of her life. She explained that letting go of her hair felt like truly revealing herself, as she could no longer hide behind it. Looking in the mirror afterward, she felt a strong purpose: to inspire others to see that beauty doesn’t depend on having hair.

She found inspiration for her role in both Charlize Theron’s performance in Mad Max: Fury Road and old yearbook pictures of her fellow actress, Winona Ryder.

She remembered Winona Ryder rocking a pixie cut years ago and admitted she was thinking of trying the style herself.

The British actress shared a surprising source she used to nail her American accent: Miley Cyrus’s Hannah Montana. She told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show that the show was “so goodt” and that “everything about it is amazing,” ultimately helping her master the accent.

The Duffer brothers used scenes from the movie Stand By Me when auditioning young actors to find the four main child stars for their show.

The brothers initially had a specific vision for the character of Mike. However, that changed after Finn Wolfhard’s audition.

I’ve always loved how the creators described Mike’s initial conception. Matt explained to The Daily Beast a while back that Mike started out as a bit of a daydreamer, really similar to Mikey from The Goonies. But then they met Finn Wolfhard, and he had this incredible, restless energy. They were so inspired by him that they actually rewrote the character to fit his personality and bring that energy to life on screen. It was a perfect match!

Oh my gosh, Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin totally made that character! The Duffer Brothers themselves said they didn’t even really know who Dustin was supposed to be at first. He was just some nerdy stereotype, and then they met Gaten, and everything changed! They literally rewrote the show to fit him! It’s amazing, honestly. Dustin is just
 perfect because of Gaten. I can’t imagine anyone else playing him!

After the show featured Eleven’s love for Eggo waffles, Kellogg’s experienced a notable boost in sales. They reported a 14 percent increase in consumption towards the end of 2017, coinciding with the release of the second season. October of that year also saw a record number of social media mentions for the product.

In early 2018, David Harbour became an internet sensation after agreeing to a fan’s request. The fan tweeted that she wanted him to take her senior portraits, asking how many retweets it would take to make it happen. Harbour responded he’d do it for 25,000 retweets, with the condition that he got to wear the school sweatshirt and hold a trombone. True to his promise, he followed through and took her photos.

He jokingly predicted on Instagram that he’d be the one to playfully ‘take over’ someone else’s high school senior photos years down the line – and it seems he followed through!

Later that year, Harbour jokingly offered to marry a fan if she got 125,000 retweets and promised him the first piece of wedding cake. He actually became an ordained minister and ended up performing the ceremony dressed as his character, Chief Hopper.

Fans often speculated that Eleven might be Hopper’s biological daughter, but he ultimately became a father figure to her. A touching detail in the season two finale revealed Eleven wearing a blue braided bracelet – a bracelet Hopper always wore, made from a ribbon belonging to his deceased daughter – at her school dance.

Millie Bobby Brown, who plays Eleven, had never kissed anyone before filming the first season of the show. She described her first kiss with Mike as a ‘strange experience,’ adding that having a large crew watching made it feel overwhelming.

She shared what her co-star secretly told her right before they had to kiss for a second time on the show.

She recalled that he told her he was about to kiss her, explaining, “He said, ‘I’m coming in,’ but he did it in this really strange way, almost like a ventriloquist! It was so weird.”

Natalia Dyer and Charlie Heaton, who star as Nancy and Jonathan in the show, started dating in 2016 and have generally kept their romance out of the public eye.

Natalia explained to Refinery 29 that she values keeping her personal life—relationships with family and friends—private. However, she also shared that collaborating with someone you’re close to can be enjoyable, saying, ‘It’s always really fun to work with somebody you go home with.’

Surprisingly, Joe Keery’s character, the popular Steve Harrington, was originally intended to die at the end of the first season.

You know, looking back at the first season, we really fell for Steve Harrington as a character – and the audience did too! That’s actually why we ended up giving him that storyline where he teams up with Jonathan and Nancy to help save the day. Originally, Steve was meant to be a bit of a stereotypical jock, but Joe Keery, the actor who plays him, brought so much more depth and nuance to the role. He completely exceeded our expectations!

18. Also slated to perish was Eleven. Yes, really. 

According to Ross Duffer, writing in the book Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down, the original plan was for Eleven to sacrifice herself to save everyone. However, when they realized the show might continue beyond one season, they had to change that ending. They knew Eleven—and Millie Bobby Brown, who played her—was too important to the show’s success for her to be permanently gone. If Stranger Things continued, Eleven needed to survive.

The seventh episode of the second season, called “The Lost Sister,” nearly didn’t air. The Duffer brothers told Vulture they worried the episode—which focuses on Eleven’s search for another child with similar experiences—would disrupt the story’s flow.

Matt explained that as they started writing the episode, they questioned whether it was truly necessary. They even considered cutting it entirely, but the planned ending involving Eleven didn’t feel right without it – it just didn’t have the desired impact. Ultimately, they decided the episode was essential.

20. Eleven’s sibling was written to be a boy, with the episode originally titled “The Lost Brother.” 

Once the audition was open to all young actors, Linnea Berthelsen won the role, and the episode showed Eleven meeting her “sister,” Kali. According to Matt, Millie Bobby Brown really connected with Linnea and specifically asked to work with her.

Nicola Coughlan, the actress known for her role in Bridgerton, originally tried out for the part of Robin. However, she later landed the role of Penelope Featherington. Maya Hawke ended up getting the role of Robin, and Nicola has said Hawke was much better suited for it than she would have been.

I always loved what she said about auditions. She explained it really helped her to look at roles she didn’t book. It taught her that it wasn’t about her personally – you’re simply a better fit for some parts and not for others, and that’s okay. It’s such a valuable lesson for any actor, honestly.

Before becoming famous for her role as Sarah on the Netflix series Outer Banks, Madelyn Cline played the character Tina, a popular and somewhat unkind student, in the second season of Stranger Things.

To land the role of Billy, the rebellious older stepbrother of Max (played by Sadie Sink), Australian actor Dacre Montgomery created a memorable audition tape. He told GQ he aimed to impress the Duffer brothers with something bold and a little edgy.

Dacre took a big risk to land a role: he filmed himself dancing in a G-string to 80s hits like “Come on Eileen” and “Hungry Like the Wolf.” He was worried about sending the video, wondering if it would ruin his career or finally get him noticed. Luckily, the gamble worked out in his favor.

As the show began its third season, Deadline reported significant pay raises for the cast. The younger actors saw their per-episode salary jump from around $30,000 to over $200,000, and potentially as high as $250,000. Winona Ryder and David Harbour were earning approximately $300,000 to $350,000 per episode, while Natalia Dyer and Charlie Heaton were making between $100,000 and $150,000.

Priah Ferguson, who played Lucas’s feisty younger sister Erica, was originally only meant to be in one episode of season two. However, the Duffer brothers were so impressed with her performance that they kept adding her to scenes. She became a regular cast member in the next season.

Because the young actors were still growing during filming, the costume designers had a hard time making sure their clothes fit consistently from scene to scene.

It was a real challenge keeping up with how fast the kids were growing,” explained costume designer Kim Wilcox to TopMob News. “One child, in particular, outgrew his shoes almost every three weeks, needing a half size bigger! To solve this, we sourced shoes from brands that offered the same style in a wide range of sizes. We’d buy five pairs of each size, so we’d always have a replacement when a child had a growth spurt.

The Duffer brothers, while inspired by films like The Goonies, E.T., and Stand By Me, made sure their references weren’t too obvious.

When we initially presented the project to Netflix, we created a lengthy, two-and-a-half-minute trailer. It combined clips and ideas from around 20 to 30 movies to give a sense of the Stranger Things story, but these were just concepts we had in mind, explained Matt in an interview with The Daily Beast. These films were hugely influential to us growing up and deeply ingrained in our creative process. However, once we started writing individual episodes, we rarely discussed those movies directly. Our focus shifted to simply telling the story and letting the characters drive the plot. Otherwise, it would have felt disjointed and confusing.

The team aimed for a retro style by minimizing special effects, but they soon realized it was more challenging than they expected.

Originally, we wanted to use only practical effects, like they did in movies like The Thing and Alien. But we quickly learned how challenging that is. It takes a huge amount of time and planning. We were writing scripts fast, but didn’t have the months needed to properly prepare those kinds of effects. When we got to set, a lot of the ideas that sounded good in theory just weren’t feasible because we were short on time.

As a lifestyle expert, I’ve been following Stranger Things closely, and it’s fascinating to learn how much of the show’s ultimate vision was set from the very beginning! The Duffer Brothers originally planned a five-season story, and according to Netflix’s Matthew Thunell, we’re now seeing those early ideas come to life as the series wraps up. It’s incredible to think about the scale of it all – Variety reported that each episode of season four cost around $30 million to produce! It just shows the dedication to bringing their complete story to the screen.

Although the creators of Stranger Things, the Duffer brothers, know how the show will eventually end, they aren’t finished exploring the story and the world of the Upside Down.

In an interview with Variety, the creators revealed they have a spin-off idea they’re really enthusiastic about, though they haven’t shared the details with anyone yet, and haven’t even started writing it. They did admit that Finn Wolfhard had correctly guessed the premise, which they described as ‘very, very different.’ They emphasized that Finn is the only person outside of the core team who knows the idea.

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2025-11-27 21:49