'Stranger Things' Final Season: What the Cast Said Before Show Ends (2024)

After five seasons on Netflix, Stranger Things will be wrapping up its story — and the cast has plenty of thoughts about saying goodbye.The hit series, which premiered in 2016, introduced viewers to the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, where a series of supernatural events cause mystery and mayhem. Over the course of five seasons,Stranger Things has catapulted its cast members — Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton and Joe Keery — to stardom.Creators Matt and Ross Duffer originally announced in February 2022 that the show would end after season 5.“Seven years ago, we planned out the complete story arc for Stranger Things,” the writing duo detailed in an open letter. “At the time, we predicted the story would last four to five seasons. It proved too large to tell in four but — as you’ll see for yourselves — we are now hurtling toward our finale. Season 4 will be the penultimate season; season 5 will be the last.”The Duffer Brothers also hinted at ways in which the Stranger Things universe could continue to be explored on Netflix, adding, “There are still many more exciting stories to tell within the world of Stranger Things: new mysteries, new adventures, new unexpected heroes. But first, we hope that you stay with us as we finish this tale of a powerful girl named Eleven and her brave friends, of a broken police chief and a ferocious mom, of a small town called Hawkins and an alternate dimension known only as the Upside Down.”Scroll down for everything the Stranger Things cast has said about the final season:

"It's already starting to be heartbreaking, you know? I mean, it's the end of a really long journey," Hawke told Entertainment Tonight in June 2024. "Longer for some of my castmates, even, than for me. So it's really sentimental. But as a late addition cast member, I feel like it's my job to be here to facilitate their feelings and just be grateful and excited to have been a part of it at all."

Keery admitted in August 2023 that while it “does feel like it’s time” to wrap up the series, it “won’t be easy” to see it all come to an end.

“I owe my whole career to being on that show and all the opportunities that I had since are because of that show,” the actor told WWD at the time. “So it’s very convoluted. There’s a sense of relief, there’s a sense of sadness. I guess my goal is to just really soak it up as much as I can while we’re doing it, and not take any of it for granted because it’s been an amazing ride with such great people. And then once it’s done, move forward and try to just hold on to the joy that we had when we were making it.”

Keery added that “everything has a beginning and the middle and an end” so it will be “it’ll be nice to have the end of [Stranger Things] too.”

"Will is like my baby and I kind of grew up with him," Schnapp detailed to Us in January 2023 about playing the role one last time. "I think — not even specifically with Will, but with the show — I'm just going to miss kind of that family that we've built and the connections on set. I've gone back to that place for the past 10 years now, and they've watched me grow up and it's definitely going to be sad when I have to permanently say goodbye and know I'm not going to be walking back on that set. But I'm definitely going to make an effort to work on other projects with the cast and crew in the future. And I think the legacy of Stranger Things will live on forever."

In March 2023, Brown admitted she was "very ready" to move on from Stranger Things.

"I'm definitely ready to wrap up. I feel like there's a lot of the story that's been told now," she explained to Seventeen. "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."

The Enola Holmes star added: "I'm able to create stories myself that are important to me and focus on the bigger picture. But I'm really grateful [for the show]."

"I have no doubt the bigger, scarier, action-y plot will be very much there. That’s almost guaranteed," Dyer told Netflix's Tudum in July 2022 about her wishes for season 5. "But I really am looking forward to hopefully having some of those nice character moments of these people connecting and showing that they care about each other. That’s the heart of what we like to do. I believe that’s part of the appeal of the show — the heart."

Before filming the finale season, the Black Widow actor teased Hopper's potential story line. "We're walking into season 5. I've got a couple more months to train," he said at the Middle East Film & Comic Con in March 2023. "I did a lot of training for season 4. He [Hopper] was in a very specific position, that Russian prison. It was about making him a different guy and sort of shedding a layer of himself physically, mentally, and emotionally. But now he's back in town, he's back in America where they have cheeseburgers, so he will be well-fed."

"There's an excitement there because you always want to wrap it up and you want to see how these characters are going to finally develop one last time, and how they're going to finish their journeys," the Broadway star said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in March 2023, noting that the experience was "bittersweet" as well. "But also, there's a deep fear that's been like — not only has it been amazing, but it's been, like, pretty great job security."

At the time, Matarazzo said he was looking forward to Dustin's final arc. "I think [the story is] in the best hands it can be," he explained. "Matt and Ross know these characters better than I think we might. It's really interesting 'cause they trust us all very much to make our own decisions and go about the scenes the way we've always instinctually wanted to."

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