Gaten Matarazzo recalled his reaction on first time reading the Stranger Things season five, specially his character Dustin’s valedictorian speech.
Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson was crowned as class valedictorian during his high school graduation ceremony which took place about 18 months after the Upside Down world is defeated.
His speech was heartfelt and nostalgic also paying tribute to Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), who dies in season four.
In an interview with the Business Insider, when asked what was his reaction to he read the speech for the first time, Matarrazo said, “It was fun. The first line was, ‘I just wanted a normal childhood.’ For some reason, Matt [Duffer], Ross [Duffer], me, all the kids just started… Yeah, we couldn’t even get through that little section without it becoming overtly emotional.”
He went on to laud his directors on working on such script, adding, “That’s such an interesting thing for Matt and Ross to wiggle in there, because they were so good about making it as normal of a situation as it could be.”
“They were so good about making it such a warm, inviting, professional, fun place for a kid to grow up in. And yet, I still think that they had anxiety about the idea,” he said taking about how his own childhood was spend on set the show-makers made it a save place for him.
Matarazzo continued, “They had a fear that maybe they took some of the normal childhood away, but they really didn’t. I want that to be very clear, that they were major contributors to maintaining that childhood.”
“I think them putting that in there was their way of kind of acknowledging that,” he said about the opening line of the speech. “And I thought that that was very touching and very beautiful, and I hope they know that they have nothing to worry about in that department.”
Stranger Things fifth final season came to an end after a decade. All five seasons are now available on Netflix.
