Gaten Matarazzo on making his Star Wars debut and the "huge" final season of Stranger Things

For 22-year-old Matarazzo, who was first cast as Dustin in Stranger Things when he was 13-years-old, the genre is part of the reason he became an actor. Or, at least, one particular sci-fi franchise - Star Wars.

"That was kind of the first real obsession that I had," he explained. "I was about seven years old, and I remember my uncle, my mum's twin brother, came in from out of town to meet us for the first time, because he lives out of state, and we only really knew him over the phone.

"He came and stayed with us for a summer, and just started trickling in the TV show, the Clone Wars, because that was on at the time. And then we marathoned the movies once, and ever since, I've just been obsessed. Like most kids, I had all the lightsabers, backpacks, lunchboxes, bedsheets, I was quoting all the movies."

Matarazzo then goes on to show me the Star Wars tattoo on his arm – he really is a superfan, and he calls George Lucas's franchise "the primary reason" he developed a love for cinema.

Given all this, it's a big moment for Matarazzo right now. There may not have been a Star Wars movie since 2019, but the franchise is still booming, with plenty of TV shows, both animated and live-action to keep fans - and actors - busy.

Appearing in a Star Wars show right now might not be the biggest deal. They feel like they're somewhat ten-a-penny. But you know what is a big deal? Headlining a Star Wars TV show as a brand-new, central character.

Matarazzo is starring in LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy, a brand-new four part Disney Plus show in which he plays nerf-herder Sig Greebling, who unearths a powerful artefact from a hidden Jedi temple, which reshapes the universe. The good guys become bad, the bad guys become good and it's all very multiverse, a concept sci-fi fans are very familiar with right now.

"It's very meta," Matarazzo says, "in the sense of that it's a Star Wars fan that ends up on a Star Wars journey, and in this world that we know and love as the Star Wars universe".

He continued: "It's pretty nuts. It's kind of just like Star Wars fans created an absolute bonkers project, just to have as much fun as possible. And that's exactly what it was filming, and exactly what it's like watching."

Matarazzo remembers the moment he first got offered the project.

"I just see it said Star Wars. I was like, 'Gosh'. And I figured 'Okay, guest starring in like a tiny little thing'. And then I read the breakdown, and I was like, 'I am bending over backwards to do this one, like, there's no way that I'm not going to make this work, I will clear everything out to get this done. I don't even care if it's good. I don't even care'."

Perhaps the most exciting element for a Star Wars fan like Matarazzo is the show's wider cast. While the likes of Tony Revolori and Marsai Martin fill out major supporting roles, the series also features the voices of some returning franchise legends.

Ahmed Best as Jar Jar Binks. Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian. Kelly Marie Tran as Rose Tico. Anthony Daniels as C-3PO. And then, the big one – Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill.

Sadly, Matarazzo didn't get to record in person with the cast, or even met them throughout the process – as we are speaking, he is about to go off to a press event where he will be meeting some of his fellow cast members for the first time.

However, his excitement when talking about Hamill's involvement is palpable.

"Once I heard that Mark was on board… I remember being in the in the booth when they told us, and I think the whole production team was just as jazzed as I was," he explains. "It was a big day for sure. I think Mark would probably roll his eyes at hearing us say that, but everyone was really, so truly excited to hear that he wanted to be a part of the project.

"Because the script is just really fun and dumb, and it's a twist that I can imagine is probably really refreshing for people who have been a part of this Universe since the 1970s. I can imagine it gets old talking about it, so to have a part of it that feels fresh and fun and goofy and low stakes is really great."

It turns out though, Star Wars wasn't Matarazzo's only first love when it came to acting and the world of entertainment. In many ways, that was also the theatre.

At the age of 22, the actor has already made a name for himself on stage, appearing in runs of shows including Les Misérables, Dear Evan Hansen and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

He says it was what "drove him forward" and gave him an "outlet" for performing, and that it also helped deepen his connection with his mother, a theatre enthusiast herself.

He says: "She started introducing me to everything she loved growing up, especially Les Mis. I remember Les Mis was her absolute favourite musical of all time, and it then became my favourite musical of all time.

"It was kind of the way we started to bond and the way we started to have a connection beyond just like Mother Son, like we had a shared interest. And that was exciting to me at seven. And I started auditioning for stuff, and it just started to feel really good, even though I wasn't booking."

Despite his many appearances on Broadway, Matarazzo has not yet taken a role on London's West End – something he is looking to rectify ASAP.

"I've been wanting to go to the West End for so long," he explains. "I remember since before I was booking when I was younger, that was like the place, because that's where so much iconic theatre is written, created, workshopped, put out for people to see. It's just kind of like a haven for beautiful theatre, and I've seen some wonderful stuff on the West End.

"I would absolutely love to work on the West End in some capacity, hopefully soon."

It seems that theatre has always been on the young actor's mind, even as he has reached bigger and bigger levels of success on screen.

"Once I transitioned into Stranger Things, it was always an idea of like, 'This is the best thing I've ever done, clearly, with Stranger Things, without a doubt', and even still, it was always in the back of my mind – 'When am I going to be able to get back to New York and start this again?' And the fact that I've been able to has been an absolute joy, like been the ultimate joy."

Ah, Stranger Things. That little show which was described in an initial pitch to Netflix as a "love letter to the golden age of Steven Spielberg and Stephen King".

Since its debut in 2016, it has gone on to become one of Netflix's biggest and most beloved properties, spawning a theatre show, a whole lot of tie-in merchandise, books and comics, and all this despite its notoriously lengthy breaks between seasons.

Matarazzo is currently in the midst of filming the show's fifth and final season, noting the "bittersweet" atmosphere on set as he, the rest of the cast and the crew enter the "homestretch".

Fans are obviously desperate for clues as to season 5's plot, and Matarazzo is wisely remaining tight-lipped. However, he was able to give us a sense of the flavour, the aesthetics – the vibe if you will – that we can expect from the new episodes.

He teases: "I think what's so cool in what Matt and Ross, our creators, the Duffer Brothers, have done so well, is taking their blueprint and then deciding they want to have a distinct aesthetic twist.

"I remember they wanted to lean into a bit more of a halloween horror vibe for [season] 2, and then [season] 3 they completely spin on its head, and they're like, 'Great, summer, neon, bold, shifting'. And [season] 4 kind of went back aesthetically to what we saw in [season] 1, and I think [season] 5 is just like a bolder continuation of that.

"For me it feels like they did season 4, and then they were like, 'Great, this is the homestretch of our show, at least aesthetically and vibe wise, that's what's going to drive it home.

"So I think [season] 5... it's huge, of course, it's one of the biggest seasons of television that I think we've seen very, very long time. And I think, a lot of people are saying it could be like a mix of [season] 1 and [season] 4 primarily. And I think that'd be a cool way of looking at it. But scale wise, it's through the roof."

Can fans expect more from the dynamic duo of Dustin and Joe Keery's Steve, a pairing no one could have seen coming back in the first season, but which has become one of the show's most beloved dynamics?

"Yeah, for sure. I think it would be a real disappointment if I didn't get to work with Joe consistently," Matarazzo says. "He's a really good friend, one of my closest on the show, and he's such a talent on screen, off screen, and you learn so much from him every day. He's just such a fun presence."

He continues: "It's so cool, because we started working together consistently in the second season, which was about seven years ago now, and at the time, I was 14 going on 15, and so I still looked at him as like this really cool older brother, someone who I looked up to and wanted to impress.

"And that still has not changed at all, but there's kind of a vibe that shifted now that I entered my 20s, I’m about the same age he was when we started the show, and it's definitely more of like a peer level kinship and a real bond. He's a really good buddy of mine. I think it's really cool for that dynamic to shift as we've gotten older, and I think that shows up on screen. It's gonna be fun for people to see."

As the show has continued, one criticism which has sometimes been levelled at it is that it has an inability or unwillingness to kill its darlings. While there have been some major deaths over the years, from Barb, to Bob, to Eddie, they have tended to be one-season characters, introduced at the start of the run only to be killed off at the end. None of the core group has so far bitten the dust.

Of course, if the show comes to an end, perhaps this reticence changes. After all, if the whole thing is bowing out in a blaze of glory, perhaps so too may some of the characters.

This notion gives the fifth season a real sense of foreboding, perhaps more so than ever before. So is Dustin in danger this time around?

"Everybody's potentially in danger, says Matarazzo. "That's kind of what makes this show so exciting and what I think is going to make this season so exciting. We saw how intense [season] 4 was, we saw how everyone was surviving by the skin of their teeth in [season] 4, and we saw that some of them didn't [survive] in [season] 4, and that's going to continue in [season] 5.

"That's why we have a show. You never really know what's coming, and I think that that maintains itself really poignantly throughout [season] 5 and I’m excited for people to experience that, I'm excited for people to feel that fear. That's what makes watching the show fun, you care about these people. You want them to do well, you want them to make it."

There's no doubt the series has been a monumental success, has opened doors for Matarazzo and the rest of the young cast that might not have otherwise been opened and catapulted them to a level of fame few fairly see. But did the young actor, who to this day is so in love with the theatre and the craft of acting, ever worry about being typecast, and boxed in in Dustin-type roles?

"Yeah, I did," he admits. "I think for a while it kind of really did scare me. Recently, if that's the case, then it's nothing but a blessing. It's more of a challenge to take on than anything else. I think that it's been really comforting to play a character that I'm still comfortable in and comfortable enough making choices in.

"I feel like I know him just as well as the writers and creators, and maybe more than anyone, and that's a really distinct honour, to have a connection with this person that's been created over the course of this decade. And I think I'm going to carry it forever, for the rest of my life, and I'm going to absolutely look back and understand that it's the coolest thing that I will probably ever do.

"And I can't wait to try to break past that. I can't wait to do my best, in context, or even just personally, even if it's not something that's big and commercial, of branching out and doing a 180. Even if it's like little personal things that, for me, help me recognise that I can get out of that box or that pigeonhole that maybe some people would like to see me in."

Does any of this mean he wouldn't be up for returning as Dustin in a potential Stranger Things spin-off, should the character make it out alive? There has certainly been a lot of talk about further shows in the universe, and Netflix would be mad to put a full-stop on this juggernaut. But does Matarazzo feel that season 5 will act as a bookend for his time as Dustin?

"It definitely will be a bookend. I think it will wrap up really nicely," he says. "And I don't think Matt and Ross [Duffer] will want to approach anything like that for a long time. So if you were to ask me a year from now if I wanted to come back, I'd probably be like, ‘I’m gonna do some other stuff for a bit initially’, but who knows what it's going to be like."

The star certainly isn't ruling anything out, and even pitched the idea for a Dustin spin-off during our conversation.

"I would love to see, potentially, if there's a continuation of Dustin after [season] 5, if any of us make it up to that point, I would love to see what would happen, what Dustin would be like as a 30-year-old. And I would love to see at tackling that, it could be a lot of fun.

"I'd be interested in seeing what their concept would be, but yeah, I’m absolutely open to anything. If it's good and it's exciting and other people are excited about doing it, absolutely. I would like to branch off and do some other stuff initially, I think for the next few years at least."
Matarzzo says his next goal will be to originate a new character, either on stage or on screen. While he has worked on other projects, he says he hasn't gotten to really 'sink his teeth into' a character since Dustin.
When it comes to film specifically, he's looking for something "weird". "Stuff that if I read a script and I say, 'No one's ever going to do this' – I'm probably gonna do that."

It's a strategy which has worked for other young actors known for one defining role – just look at Daniel Radcliffe. If we see Matarazzo playing a farting corpse anytime soon, we'll know he's following the Radcliffe playbook.

As for a return to LEGO Star Wars for another adventure as Sig? Well, that's a no-brainer.

"Whenever they want me, I am there," Matarazzo says. "I have no idea what their plan is, but I am here for it. I'm locked in."

Could Sig even make the jump into live-action? We've seen it plenty of times before, with Clone Wars characters making their way over to The Mandalorian or Ahsoka.

"I think the jump from LEGO animation to live action would probably be the furthest jump we've seen in Star Wars," he admits, "but I'm not going to count it out. Everything with the multiverse in a lot of these franchises means everything seems to be possible in today's day and age. So if they want me, I'm here."

LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy will be available to stream on Disney Plus from Friday 13th September. You can sign up to Disney Plus for £7.99 a month or £79.90 a year now.

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