Stranger Things Star Admits Netflix Series Ending “Won’t Be Easy”

While some actors are looking forward to Stranger Things ending so that they can focus on other things in their career, Joe Keery is one of the cast members with mixed feelings regarding the show’s finale. Though he admitted in a recent interview it feels like it’s time for the show to end, he’s not going to feel too great about things wrapping up one final time.

“It does feel like it’s time. It won’t be easy for it to end,” Keery said in a Women’s Wear Daily conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike. “I mean, I owe my whole career to being on that show and all the opportunities that I had since are because of that show.”

He added, “So it’s very convoluted. There’s a sense of relief, there’s a sense of sadness. I guess my goal is to just really soak it up as much as I can while we’re doing it, and not take any of it for granted because it’s been an amazing ride with such great people. And then once it’s done, move forward and try to just hold on to the joy that we had when we were making it….Everything has a beginning and the middle and an end. It’ll be nice to have the end of this too.”

Keery’s co-star David Harbour has expressed he desire to be done with the show many times, comparing it to George Clooney to leaving ER at the turn of the century.

“I think about George Clooney leaving ‘ER.’ Now we just see him as George Clooney, but there was a time when it was, The guy from ER is doing a movie with Nicole Kidman,’” Harbout said at the time. “.I’m trying to navigate some of that, and it’s tricky because you don’t want to shit on the people that love you for this thing that you did that you also love. But at the same time, you kind of want to leave the nest. I got more in me. I got different stuff in me, and I want you guys to see that. I don’t want people yelling ‘Hopper’ on the street every five minutes the rest of my life.”

The show’s fifth and final season was originally set to begin filming earlier this summer prior to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes delaying principal photography indefinitely.

Stranger Things 5 is expected to premiere in 2024 on Netflix.