#Linda Hamilton Says Being Cast in ‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 “Ruined” It for Her

Linda Hamilton may be joining the Hawkins, Indiana, crew for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, but she won’t be watching it along with the rest of the show’s fans.

In an interview with Us Weekly! while promoting Resident Alien, the actress shared that she has always been a massive fan of the show, but now that she’s in it, it won’t be the same for her.

“I’ve watched every season with relish. I just love it,” she told the publication. “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.”

She continued, “When you really buy into something, you don’t see yourself in it. So I think, in a way, it kind of ruined the show for me. I never watch [a project] once I’m in something. It would just completely take me out of the reality of it to see myself in there. So, I won’t be watching [season five].”

The actress is one of the few new castmembers to join the hit sci-fi series for its final run. Her role is being kept under wraps from audiences but also from her to some degree.

She explained that she spoke to creators Ross and Matt Duffer after she was cast, and they gave her the “shape of the character but not of the story.”

“They have to be very careful with their story,” she said. “So I still don’t know how it ends. 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 not being able to share anything about the role itself, Hamilton did note that she’s been having a great time on the show, which began production on Jan. 8. She said she’ll have friends text her to see where she is, and she can’t say because it could reveal bits of the plot, and she has too much respect and love for the Duffer brothers to do that.

“I do get to be there for table reads and watch it unfold and be part of it. I’m thrilled to be part of it,” Hamilton said. “But I just never, ever saw that one coming. It is different when you’re a fan of the show to sort of go, ‘Well, how do I fit?’ But we’re working on it. It’s good. It’s really good.”

Stranger Things season five will pick up sometime after the events of the penultimate season’s finale, which — spoiler alert! — saw Hawkins split into four pieces as a result of Vecna’s (Jamie Campbell Bower) curse succeeding, despite Max (Sadie Sink) still technically being alive.

However, when after the season four finale the fifth installment kicks off remains to be seen. Ross Duffer told TVLine in June 2022 that he’s “sure” there will be a time jump between the last two seasons, considering most of the cast — who began the show as kids — are well into their late teens and early 20s at this point.

“Ideally, we’d have shot [seasons four and five] back to back, but there was just no feasible way to do that,” he told the publication at the time. “So, these are all discussions we’re going to have with our writers when we start the room up.”