Original subtitles

I think what's most exciting for me

is getting to watch Will grow,

and see him just come out of his shell.

Because, throughout the whole story,

Will has been so shy, so fearful

and not able to stand up for himself.

And you really just want to see him, like, fight back.

And the big mid-season finale finally paid off.

Three, two, one, go!

Hey. Hey. Derek.

Derek is very confused.

He thinks some evil child kidnappers

have kidnapped him.

But they're really just trying to lure out the Demogorgons

so they can defeat them and get led straight to Vecna.

This is where I start to become… bait.

Even though Derek tries to run, he tries to escape,

he gets scared out of his boots

'cause he hears the banging on the door.

And then Joyce takes a big…

Stay back!

In the script, it was a kind of bad-word axe.

You want him? You're gonna have to come through me!

And she swings at the Demo, scares him off,

and ultimately Steve comes and hits him with the car.

Oh my God!

Slow down! Jesus Christ!

Jesus!

Joe is one of those that can get in there and drive though.

He's one of our actors that is very good at driving.

Yeah, I do a lot of driving.

I showed up for the first season,

and they said, "You can drive a stick, right?"

And luckily, I could drive a stick.

And I've been sort of driving this car ever since.

We've done some practical.

We've done a lot on the volume

and capture with blue screens, but always fun.

And it runs into the silo and into the Upside Down.

Jesus Christ!

And what a great group.

The four of us in that car, there's never a dull moment.

It's fun and good energy.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

And, cut.

Welcome.

Because Holly and Max have a very loose connection

through Mike,

Max is able to see Holly as her ticket out.

I have a plan.

A plan to get us out of here.

And it's gonna take time.

More time than we have now.

That was a fun scene to shoot

because it was really fun

to see how the arts department

just really turned it into this weird home for Max

that was just this collection of

things that she found in her exploring

through the memories.

So, yeah, the cave is one of my favorite sets

to film on this year.

If you want to escape Camazotz,

this is the only way.

Tell me what I need to do.

You trying to give your old man a heart attack? Nice job.

El heard a kryptonite sound coming from within the base,

so she knows there's someone powerful there,

and the assumption is that it's Vecna,

so they've gotta go into the lion's den.

I'm toying with Hopper,

and he's being strangled slowly to death,

and that's when Eleven comes out, as weak as she is,

to try to protect him.

And then that leads into a big fight scene,

and I got tossed around for a whole day.

You know, but it's business as usual for these guys.

It was huge.

And great fun, great fun.

Scissors.

It was epic.

Linda just brought kind of like this feminine energy

that is so strong and inspirational and motivating.

Oh, you're strong, Linda!

Yes. I hope I don't hurt you.

No, it's all right. I love it.

I just feel like when she steps onto set,

I want to work as hard as she does

to meet her, and she just pushes me.

-Cut. -Cut!

What are you doing?

You gotta go. You gotta go. Come on.

It's a powerful moment because…

You're gonna find Nancy and the others.

Whoa. Hey.

What is that?

It's just a failsafe, okay?

-A failsafe. -No.

It's the ultimate betrayal.

Hopper was planning on leaving her.

It's hard.

I am so proud of you.

I am so proud of what you've overcome,

I'm proud of who you are.

No!

I think the biggest challenge for him is

having to live with this toxically masculine heroism

that contains deep love but also deep betrayal

of the people that love him.

But he sees it as his only answer, I think.

And I think that's… what ultimately makes it beautiful,

but it winds up straining a lot of relationships

as well when people find out about it,

and he has a lot of guilt

about what he's doing, but he has to do it.

At the end, they finally reach the door

where they believe Vecna is behind,

but they learn that it's not Vecna

but in fact Kali

who I think probably nobody is expecting to be behind that door.

And of course, when we reveal that Kali is there and Vecna is not,

the twist, of course, is that he's coming into Hawkins.

Welcome to our battle zone here.

We have a lot to talk through and show you around.

The MAC-Z is absolutely one of the most hectic, chaotic,

crazy, and rewarding sequences I've ever shot.

There's dozens of stunt people, close to 100 extras,

there's Demogorgons, there's monsters,

and fire and explosions and giant chase sequences.

-Go! -Come on, guys!

So, behind me you can see a bunch of cranes with wires.

We're setting up for the battle.

Those cranes are for the stunts 'cause they're connected to wires.

And they get pulled and thrown, and it's pretty cool watching it.

Three, two, one, go!

We took the most time prepping it.

We had a total of 50 kills in that sequence.

There's a lot of stunt folks that were working.

I had 56 amazing stunt folks that came out

and just thrashed themselves for us.

Thank you, guys.

The Radio Shack.

If we move quick, we can make it.

Get into the tunnels

and get the hell out of here, okay? Eyes on me.

When I read the MAC-Z fight, I was like, oh man.

It says "Mike leads the kids through a battlefield," basically.

And I was like, oh man, I should probably start running

'cause I've never done that kind of work before.

It was pretty amazing to be someone

who's like the protector and trying to get these kids out

without getting hurt.

It felt kinda nice and full circle.

It's almost like protecting your younger self.

So, that was pretty cool.

All right, cut.

So this is the rift to the Upside Down.

As you can see, it's huge. There's blue screen behind there,

so they're gonna add in a whole layer of rift

and vines and slime,

and that's where Vecna will walk through.

I love that scene.

It's really the first time we see new Vecna in this season.

He comes out of this big gate

and just starts causing utter mayhem.

I mean, we're throwing people against walls.

I think somebody gets set on fire at some point.

I pull some pins out of someone's grenade

and chuck them against a big gas tank.

I spin a Humvee over

to find Winona who faces off against me.

Stay away from him!

I just chuck her to one side, and it's really enjoyable.

I loved it.

His body, thanks to Nancy, is completely ravaged

at the end of Season 4.

The film Hellraiser has always been a major influence on Vecna

and his character and his design.

Specifically Pinhead, where you have a monster

or a body being rebuilt supernaturally.

So, he is able to rebuild his body bigger and badder.

We are in the BGFX lair.

We are testing Vecna 2.0.

We called him Vecna 2.0.

His body was increased in size.

We had lots of negative space on the body as well

so you could see through these vines and shapes.

This is something we would not be able to achieve

with practical makeup effects,

so we fell on this middle ground where we did head and shoulders

on Jamie.

And we had a Lycra skintight catsuit,

made for Jamie, covered in tracking markers

for visual effects.

From the top of the chest down,

all of his body would be augmented and created digitally.

With the aspect of him being less human,

we also wanted to push the envelope

with his sort of weaponized arm.

So, the left hand that he used so much in Season 4,

we wanted to take that up a notch.

It can expand and flex and change form

in a way that is new this season.

We knew we wanted a big moment at the end of Volume 1,

and we've always known that Will

has a connection to Vecna and the Upside Down.

And so one of the earliest ideas of this season is,

what if Will was able to harness these feelings

and these powers and turn them against our villains?

I was like, they're going to do something truly insane,

and they did.

I was like, oh yes. It's happening. This is real.

I think that that's going to be a huge twist

that changes the chemistry of the show as a whole.

Having that moment in that set was incredible.

It felt like an action movie,

getting to stand there with the fire around me

and all the bodies dead,

and I was the only one standing and boom!

His powers are crazy.

Like, that's insane.

Stranger Things 5 is more cinematic in scale than any season before,

but I'm also happy to say that the emotional center

remains the same.

That it's always anchored in these characters that we love.

There is a lot that Will has been dealing with,

so it's not just about him becoming this sort of superhero.

We wanted him to grow as a human

and become a fully formed version of who he is

and truly accept who he is.

Once he's able to do that, he's able to harness these powers.

It was pure joy and excitement filming that stuff

because, oh my God, like I feel like any actor

dreams of getting a moment like that.

It was like, I mean, honestly, one of like highlights of my career.

Ready, and kill!

There's such joy that I felt that night.

Oh, like, it was amazing.