Stranger Things star Gaten Matarazzo talks about the hardest part of filming Season 5 

Gaten Matarazzo's Dustin Henderson has gone through hell and back in the past two seasons of Stranger Things. Of course, the overall events of the show have never been just fun to begin with, but the end of the fourth season had Dustin facing a dear friend, Eddie Munson's death, which changed him for life.

Dustin found himself grieving Eddie's death in Season 5, but he was convinced that the only way to do it correctly was to be miserable and carry a constant reminder of the grief through anger. Dustin even tried to protect himself from ever feeling that loss and grief again by pushing everyone else away, including his deepest connection on the show, Steve Harrington.

Gaten Matarazzo reveals how portraying that side of Dustin opposite to Steve was one of the harder parts of filming Stranger Things Season 5.

Stranger Things Season 5 star Gaten Matarazzo opens up about Dustin's emotional journey in the final season

Dustin has served as the emotional glue for the majority of Stranger Things. So to watch him shield himself from his friends in the final season while he was grieving Eddie's death felt like the heart of the group was ripped out of its chest. The funny, goofy nerd was so full of anger in his grief that it was hard to recognize him at times.

In a recent conversation with Deadline, Gaten Matarazzo opens up about how it was challenging for him as an actor to tap into something completely different when playing Dustin this season:

"I love this kid a lot. I love Dustin. I love playing him. I love watching him grow and growing alongside of him, and it breaks my heart to see what a place that he’s in. Also, for it being the last [season], I was inevitably going to grieve that fun-loving side of him and being able to tap into it, because I had to jump into something new and find something something different."

Dustin had an especially emotional arc this season on Stranger Things, with him picking fights with Steve Harrington until the final blowup, which finds him landing blows on Steve. Matarazzo reveals that he had a lot of nerves when preparing for that scene:

"There was a lot of stress involved, especially as we were getting closer, and we started reading the stuff within Volume 2. I was like, ‘Great. Okay, cool. So now the entire year is gonna be built around me being stressed about this fight and this blow up afterwards.’"

However, he went on to add that the fact that this fight, and the eventual blowup in Stranger Things Season 5, being alongside Joe Keery as Steve Harrington, did help him in grounding himself and not being too concerned about being vulnerable and emotional:

"Knowing that it would be with Joe is this most soothing part of it, understanding that I would get to do so alongside somebody who — not only who I trust, but who I’ve seen take on challenges like this and do so with seeming ease....That makes a process like that a hell of a lot easier to where we have the ability to show the ugly parts of ourselves to each other and not feel the awkward pressure."

So, the fact that Gaten got to play out one of the most human parts of life, the grief and anger that comes with losing someone important to us so suddenly, alongside Joe Keery, helped him give life to the emotionally complicated journey of his character in Stranger Things Season 5.

Read More: I am totally convinced Stranger Things finale missed an intense element due to the demogorgons' absence

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