Photos courtesy of Netflix
As the town of Hawkins gears up for its final battle, the Stranger Things Cast say their goodbyes and reflect on filming the series.
When Millie Bobby Brown visited the Philippines during the press tour of Stranger Things season one, she discovered that she loved tapsilog. “I loved the breakfast there. I had the same thing every morning,” she says, during a press junket. At the time, Brown shares that she had no clue how big the show would be, but that she felt the love and passion of their fans in the Philippines. “It was definitely an eye-opener,” Brown reflects.
Fast forward almost ten years, and the series is now gearing up for its finale. Set in an ‘80s fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, the story begins when a young girl named Eleven (played by Brown) opens a gateway between Earth and an alternate dimension with her psychokinetic abilities. Eleven then encounters a group of friends, Mike Wheeler, Lucas Sinclair, and Dustin Henderson, who are trying to solve the mystery of their missing friend, Will Byers.
Since then, the story has gone through three more seasons, with each one leading up to a bigger battle that audiences will see in season five. During the press junket, the cast shares their feelings about the finale.
“I’m really excited for you to see in the next season some of the answers, some of the questions the fans have about both characters and Will’s disappearance, and obviously, my introduction, my beginning as well,” Brown shares.
Noah Schnapp, who plays Will Byers, shares that it doesn’t feel quite like the end yet. “It never really feels final, and I honestly don’t think it ever will,” he says. “That last day definitely made the most real and was the hardest goodbye, but we knew we had the press tour and the celebration of the show coming out to look forward to. So, I don’t think it will really feel final until we have to say goodbye altogether with the world.”
“I would say, the last, filming the last sequence of the show was definitely, a real, truly did feel like a dream. Like, it felt, it felt like a dream that I would have had in season one as a 12-year-old,” Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler, says. “It was really sad and we were all together and, you know, it was just, it was a very surreal experience.”
Maya Hawke, who plays Robin Buckley, and Natalia Dyer, who plays Nancy Wheeler, share that friendship remains the beating heart of the series. “I think it just takes the idea of what it means to be a friend and to love and to show up and to protect and care for someone, you know, on a bigger, bigger scale,” Dyer shares.
“No matter what form, if that relationship is brother and sister or boyfriend and girlfriend or girlfriend and girlfriend, you know, that you really need to have a grounded center of friendship in that, especially to get through as much as everyone, all the characters on this show have to get through,” Hawke shares. “As the stakes get higher circumstantially, the bonds of friendship have to get even stronger.”
The younger cast members also reflect on their friendship, especially as they’ve grown up together while filming the series. “I was a kid in high school learning how to, learning myself, learning friends, building friendships, obtaining friends, and the show really taught me what friendship was,” reflects Caleb McLaughlin, who plays Lucas Sinclair.
McLaughlin also talks about how the series serves as an allegory for mental health. “The Upside Down represents, like, I feel like our inner thoughts that we struggle with, the battles that we face, the unseen battles. Because the Upside Down is this anonymous world that we don’t know about, and then we come in season one, we’re kind of figuring it out.”
For Schnapp, the series also shows what growing up is like. “I mean growing up is messy and takes time, and we all have to understand and work through, and we’re always growing up,” he says. “I don’t think we ever actually reach adulthood. Everyone continues to feel like a kid through the rest of their life.”
When asked what message she would give to her season one self, Brown answers that she would’ve liked a glimpse of the future. “The fact that we all just kind of didn’t think we’d ever see each other again, and then we’ve been together for the last 10 years,” she says. “I would have liked a heads-up just to be able to know what I’m going to do with my life, or maybe I didn’t need to know.”
Last Thursday, there were many smiles, laughter, and hugs at the Stranger Things Season 5 World Premiere. The cast remains tight-lipped about what the season has in store, but assures that as the gang faces the Upside Down, each of them gets the ending that they deserve.
Stranger Things Season 5 premieres in the Philippines on November 27, 2025, at 9:00 AM on Netflix.
