Linda Hamilton says she’s ‘excited’ to be making her way to Hawkins, Indiana to join the cast of Stranger Things for the fifth and final season.
But, at the same time, the actress admitted the opportunity has ‘kind of ruined the show’ for her as the story winds down to its inevitable conclusion.
It turns out, The Terminator star has not only been a fan of the science fiction horror drama series since its inception, but she also has a policy of not watching any of her work once it’s finished and released.
So, in keeping with that rule, Hamilton won’t be watching the upcoming last season of the hit Netflix series.
‘I’ve watched every season with relish. I just love it,’ she told Us Weekly. ‘So it’s kind of, like, imposter syndrome where I don’t [feel that I] fit in there. That’s a whole world set in the ’80s.’
Linda Hamilton, 67, shared her excitement in landing a role in the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, but confessed the opportunity ‘ruined the show’ for her because she doesn’t like watching herself once the film or show is released
Hamilton, now 67, went on to share how she’s always had a hard time picturing herself in a film or show when she’s already been vested in it as a viewer and fan.
‘When you really buy into something, you don’t see yourself in it,’ she explained during the interview. ‘So I think, in a way, it kind of ruined the show for me. I never watch [a project], once I’m in something.’
She continued, ‘It would just completely take me out of the reality of it to see myself in there. So I won’t be watching [Season 5].’
Exactly what role Hamilton plays in season five has been largely kept under wraps.
The same can be said for how the storyline plays out within the last episodes of the show.
‘I Zoomed [creators] Ross and Matt Duffer, and they gave me the shape of the character, but not of the story. Because they have to be very careful with their story. So I still don’t know how it ends,’ the Salisbury, Maryland native said.
She confessed: ‘And it takes a lot of discipline to not know where it’s going to go. But that’s to protect it from all of the people that want to know.’
While Hamilton is contractually bound to keep quiet as to how the series ends, she did tease fans by sharing that the final season is ‘really good.’
Winona Ryder, 52, and David Harbour, 48, lead the cast of adults in the Netflix series Stranger Things that is set to drop sometime in 2025
Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown lead the young cast in season one in 2016
Millie Bobby Brown, Noah Schnapp, Finn Wolfhard, Charlie Heaton and Eduardo Franco
Hamilton will forever be known for her leading lady role in The Terminator (1984), starring alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Biehn
Hamilton played a more ripped and buff version of Sarah Connor in the hit sequel Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
Created by Matt and Ross Duffer – otherwise known as the Duffer Brothers – Stranger Things first premiered on Netflix in July 2016, and it quickly became a fan favorite for the streaming platform.
It has since gone on to set records for viewership for Netflix, which includes a whopping 64 million households who watched the third season within the first month of its release in July 2019, according to Wikipedia.
The cast is lead by Winona Ryder, David Harbour and Millie Bobby Brown, along with such young stars as Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer and Charlie Heaton, among many others.
Delayed by the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, Stranger Things didn’t start shooting the show’s much-anticipated final season until this past January.
As a result the series isn’t expected to drop on the streaming platform until some time in 2025.
