Gaten Matarazzo drew on grief for Stranger Things performance

Gaten Matarazzo’s own grief following the loss of his cousin helped inform his performance in Stranger Things season five.

Gaten Matarazzo’s own grief helped inform his performance in Stranger Things season five.

The 23-year-old actor lost his cousin Joey, who was 19, in a car accident in 2020 and looking at the different ways his family processed the situation helped him to understand the “personality shift” his alter ego Dustin Henderson has revealed in the upcoming episodes following the death of his close friend Eddie Munson (Joseph Quin) in the season four finale.

Gaten told NME: “His personality shift seems very rooted in his inability to helpfully grieve.

“I wouldn’t be celebratory of his shift, because it does lead him to a pickle or two. He’s in a darker place which makes him distant. Weirdly enough, those times where people need their friends and their family, they do tend to distance themselves from them. It’s frustrating to see, frustrating to play and I’ve been there.

“I lost somebody around the same age who was tremendously close to me at a very similar time.

“People seem to deal with it very differently. And there’s a universe where my family and I treated our loss in the same way Dustin does – of distancing themselves, growing angry and resentful then ostracising themselves from what they need most.

“I don’t think I necessarily went down that path but there’s a world where I could have, and that’s interesting to think about going into the fifth season.”

Asked if he drew on his experiences for Dustin’s new arc, he added: “For sure. [There were] a lot of interesting parallels going into the fifth season that rang eerily true to experiences that my family and I had. Even if I dealt with it differently, I know people who dealt with it similarly to Dustin and that aided how I approached what he was doing.”

Gaten teased that the upcoming season – which will be released by Netflix in three parts – feels “tremendously cinematic”.

Asked what fans can expect, he said: “I don’t want to just give a softball ‘I guess you’ll have to wait and see’ type answer.

“We hit the ground running. It feels tremendously cinematic and it’s weird because every other season is a bit of a slow-burn build towards what the crux is going to be for that season. But from the very beginning, they are approaching this one as the climax to what feels like a long movie.”