We've already been told by Stranger Things showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer to brace ourselves for a tear-jerking fifth season, as Will, Eleven and co. enter into a life-threatening face-off against big bad Vecna. This is Stranger Things, mind you, so we can expect some fun and levity amid all that world-saving tension.
The actors had a pretty challenging time filming any lighter scenes towards the end of the chapter's near 12-month shoot, though, the Duffer Brothers have recalled. Why? Well, they knew it was the last time they'd all be together running around Hawkins and avoiding demogorgons...
"It was hard to even get through take after take," Ross Duffer explained to Variety, remembering how they had to tell the stars to cheer up a little while the cameras were rolling. "You're just going, 'They're feeling every moment of this.' Occasionally, they were actually too emotional in moments when it was a little too early in the scene. We're like, 'You're not supposed to be upset!'"
"I think it changed me as an actor forever," added Maya Hawke, who plays Robin Buckley. "I am a different actor today, and I think a better actor, because of that opportunity to do a scene that was on such a high-stakes emotional day of my life that was also a high stakes emotional scene. It was just this extraordinary gift. But I did spend 12 hours in a rolling cycle of weeping."
"Everybody was feeling the fatigue of shooting for a year," said Steve Harrington's Joe Keery. "Everyone was looking forward to being done, but then once you get to the finish line, you look back and think, 'Oh, man, can I just have one more?'"
Six weeks out from the first four episodes of Stranger Things 5 dropping on Netflix, and we still don't know all that much about the plot of the upcoming installment.
The official synopsis reads: "Scarred by the opening of the Rifts, our heroes are united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna. But he has vanished – his whereabouts and plans unknown, As the anniversary of Will's disappearance approaches, so does a heavy, familiar dread. The final battle is looming – and with it, a darkness more powerful and more deadly than anything they've faced before. To end this nightmare, they'll need everyone – the full party – standing together, one last time."
It wasn't just the actors who found filming those final moments a difficult experience, either. "I'm never going to spend 10 years on something again, I don't think, where you become this much of a family with the people who are working on it," Matt Duffer chimed in. "It was really hard. Each day was saying goodbye. Each of those actors only had to say goodbye once. Ross and I had to do it four different times. Every time I'm like, 'I'm not going to break!' And I broke every time."
Volume 1 of Stranger Things season 5 lands on November 26, with Volume 2 arriving on December 25 and Volume 3 releasing on December 31. For more, check out our picks of the best Netflix shows for some viewing inspiration.
