Gaten Matarazzo on Pizza Movie’s ‘Stranger Things’ References

Gaten Matarazzo didn’t want to overthink his first post-Stranger Things commitment. Personal enjoyment became the only real criteria that a potential project had to meet, and BriTANick’s “stoner comedy for theater kids,” Pizza Movie, fit that bill to a T.

The well-received hallucinogenic misadventure chronicles Jack (Matarazzo) and Montgomery’s (Sean Giambrone) dormitory quest for pizza in order to alleviate the ill effects of an off-brand drug they recklessly ingested. The college-set tale does have some mild overlap with the Duffer brothers’ smash hit that wrapped its storied run at the end of 2025. Jack and Montgomery play fantasy board games and are bullied by jocks, but the tone is such a left turn that any common threads with Matarazzo’s former series become an afterthought. 

“Sometimes, there’s pressure to pick the perfect follow-up after you jump off of a project that reaches as many people as Stranger Things did. But I wanted to get that noise out of my brain because I do have a tendency to let that type of influence make a difference,” Matarazzo tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I remember being obsessed with the audacity of [Pizza Movie]. [BriTANick] took the clichés and tropes about stoner movies and flipped them on their head.”

That point includes other comparable comedies with either stoner, buddy or coming-of-age ingredients. And Matarazzo soon appreciated a relatively last-minute rewrite that Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney (BriTANIck) did to deprioritize the romantic pursuits of Jack and Montgomery. The film still has remnants of that original intent by way of Lulu Wilson’s Lizzy and Peyton Elizabeth Lee’s Ashley, but the thrust of the story is whether Jack and Montgomery’s friendship can survive their underlying frustration with one another.

“It was a good move. For me, the biggest drawback to these types of characters is how sex-obsessed they are. I quickly became pretty on board with the idea of Jack having no romantic prospects in the film whatsoever,” Matarazzo says. “He’s such an insufferable person anyway, and if he was also a sexist jerk who’s just trying to get laid the whole time, then that would just be weirdly irredeemable. So that makes the movie more interesting and more modern, while the characters are easier to watch and root for.”

As mentioned, any similarities to Stranger Things quickly fall out of mind, but the art department still wanted to speak to those hardcore fans who were bound to watch Pizza Movie out of loyalty to Matarazzo. For example, eagle-eyed viewers spotted a Post-it note on Jack’s desk that spelled out a scheduled FaceTime with many character names from Stranger Things. Matarazzo didn’t catch these Easter eggs until later on in production, and that’s when he politely asked the crew to dial back these references just a bit.

“If people look harder, they’ll be able to see even more. There were like ten Stranger Things references, and I remember being like, ‘These are funny, but can we take a few off just because it’s a little on the nose? I feel like it’ll be a little too glaring,’” Matarazzo recalls. “Then I think they realized that we had probably already shot so many of them. I don’t even think Nick and Brian knew how many there were, but it was pretty funny.”

As for the end of Stranger Things, Matarazzo is now offering his thoughts on the viral fan theory, “Conformity Gate.” Fans speculated that the series finale’s epilogue was actually setup for a secret finale the following week, one where the characters would break free from their Vecna-induced mind prison. However, it was all a grand case of apophenia, and Matarazzo regrets having to break the news to an excited fan on the streets of New York City. 

“I was walking in the city when someone stopped me and asked, ‘Is it coming out tonight?’ I thought it was just a misunderstanding, and then they showed me all of the banter about it,” Matarazzo recalls. “It turns out that they had canceled their date with a guy that night because they thought the ninth episode was coming out. So I pleaded with her: ‘Please just call him back. Don’t miss out on your date for this.’ There was secondhand disappointment on my end because I felt bad having to say that nothing was coming.”

Immediately following the series finale, Matarazzo declined to offer his thoughts on whether Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) is dead or alive. He preferred to let the mystery be à la Carrie Coon’s The Leftovers playbook. Since then, some of his co-stars, including Caleb McLaughlin and Sadie Sink, voiced their insistence that she’s dead, prompting him to rethink his approach to the persistent question. But it’s a much easier question for Matarazzo to answer on behalf of his character than himself.

“I definitely believe Dustin thinks she’s dead. He’s such a pragmatic, scientific dude who looks at all the evidence in front of him, and I don’t think he would truly believe it the way an optimist like [Finn Wolfhard’s] Mike would,” Matarazzo says. “But for his friend, he will probably always say that he believes she’s alive.”

Matarazzo himself now seems to want to lean toward the idea that Eleven is dead, but he’s held back by the very real possibility that the Duffers will resume the story someday. “I think she would be [dead], but I also see a world where Matt and Ross would flip it around at some point. I think that’s kind of their intention. So ‘I don’t know’ is what I will say right now,” Matarazzo adds.

Below, during a conversation with THR, Matarazzo also discusses his reaction to the Pizza Movie memes involving Jack’s screaming face, as well as his spoof of Timothée Chalamet’s Sphere-based marketing stunt. Then he reflects on his experience collaborating with Andy Serkis on the upcoming animated remake of Animal Farm.

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You’re three-plus months into your post-Stranger Things era. How’s it treating you so far?

It doesn’t feel like three months. That’s wild. But it’s been good. I’ve been moving and settling into my new spot. That’s been taking up a big chunk of my time, and I’ve also been working on and off, which has been cool. So I’m just trying to take it easy for the most part, and while it’s been a weird adjustment, it’s been a great few months. [Writer’s Note: News broke a few days after this interview that Matarazzo is a part of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical film adaptation of Dave Malloy’s Octet.]

Pizza Movie is your first project to come out since the series wrapped. Thus, how much deliberation went into it? Did it need to be this and need to be that? Or were you just looking for anything that struck a chord? 

Sometimes, there’s pressure to pick the perfect follow-up after you jump off of a project that reaches as many people as Stranger Things did. People see that next step as a statement piece. But I wanted to get that noise out of my brain because I do have a tendency to let that type of influence make a difference. So I’ve been trying not to let that be the case. 

When the Pizza Movie script came through, I remember being obsessed with the audacity of it. It was insane to me. [BriTANick] really didn’t care about being like anything else. They took the clichés and tropes about stoner movies and flipped them on their head in a very self-referential way. So I really liked that it took note of the fact that these movies can be very repetitive and just decided to go all in — to the point where it was such a hat on a hat that it became its own thing. 

I also knew I would just have so much fun on it. After the audition process, it became very clear it was going to be an absolute blast to make. And my biggest concern and priority after leaving Stranger Things was making sure that I enjoy engaging and challenging new projects. So I’m in a really lucky position to be able to do that.

You attended Stranger Things University for a decade, so you never got the chance to have the traditional college experience. Do you think that’s another reason why you were drawn to this college-set story?

I don’t know if it had as much to do with the college setting and living vicariously through a character attending college. Maybe it did have more to do with the situation than I would give it credit for, but that’s interesting to think about. I still think I’d like to go to college at some point, but it certainly wouldn’t be a very traditional experience if I did. 

You may not have had the college experience, but you did have the roommate experience with an individual by the name of Finn Wolfhard. Did you and Finn bicker and squabble like Jack and Montgomery do at times? 

I can only recall one time.  I fucked up. I fell asleep without giving him a key to my place, and he was outside for a good half hour, banging on the door and calling me. I’m a deep sleeper, so I really just couldn’t hear. And when I finally did open the door, I didn’t know how long he’d been out there. So I was just like, “Hey man, what’s up?” And his reaction is the only time I’ve actually seen him genuinely upset with me. We don’t argue very much. Maybe it’s because we’re both very conflict-averse. We tend to see eye to eye very consistently, and we tend to have very similar living situations. So we were a little bit more compatible as roommates than Jack and Montgomery.

BriTANick told me that you had questions following a big rewrite they did before filming because you really liked the version that existed. I think Jack ended up with Lizzy (Lulu Wilson) in that draft, and Montgomery ended up with a different version of Ashley (Peyton Elizabeth Lee). But then they said you quickly grew fond of the new version. So what’s your recollection of that rewrite discussion? 

I thought it was great. Characters in movies like this can feel very bro-y, and for me, the biggest drawback to these types of characters is how sex-obsessed they are. That can just become a bit of a trudge. Initially, I was curious about it, but I quickly became pretty on board with the idea of Jack having no romantic prospects in the film whatsoever. It really is the last thing on his mind. He’s such an insufferable person anyway, and if he was also a sexist jerk who’s just trying to get laid the whole time, then that would just be weirdly irredeemable.

Montgomery’s romantic pursuit seems so genuine and wholesome. But characters like Jack don’t seem to really go down that route. It was a really great way of making Lizzy feel interconnected to the two boys. She and Jack used to be friends, and she and Montgomery clearly had a crush on each other at some point. So that makes the movie more interesting and more modern, while the characters are easier to watch and root for.

Yeah, it’s more focused on the survival of Jack and Montgomery’s friendship than potential romance.

Yeah, it was a good move. I was really stoked for it once they figured it out. The Ashley twist was so last minute, and I found it hilarious. The idea of her being a crazy alternative “folk” musician that has the craziest, most red-flag take on music ever came very quickly to the shoot. And Peyton [Elizabeth Lee] did not know about it until we got very close to the day, which is something we’ve laughed about before.

You and Sean Giambrone spoofed Timothée Chalamet’s Sphere stunt on a random picnic table in Austin, Texas. You guys joked about the lack of theatrical release, and BriTANick told me that they did broach the subject at one point with the powers that be. 

Yeah.

Did you hold out hope that a theatrical release might happen? 

Yeah, I was really hoping for it. It’s a big slapstick-y comedy that is designed to really succeed in theaters, and people feel more encouraged to laugh in groups. A group setting is just perfect for this movie. Theaters are so hard to predict right now, and nothing is really guaranteed, so you understand that streaming is the most likely situation. But after the movie’s reception and seeing how well it’s done and how much people have engaged, I can imagine a world where Hulu might be kicking themselves over not giving it a theatrical release. So I’ve still got my fingers crossed that they might do some theaters soon because it seems to be doing well. We’re really stoked about it. 

I keep seeing viral tweets involving Jack’s reaction shot to his bottle of alcohol being broken by his bullies. Your work has gone viral plenty of times in the past, so are you usually surprised by what people latch onto the most?

That’s what’s so interesting to me. Whenever you try to get people to latch onto something, they won’t. A lot of times, something will go viral because the people who have engaged feel like it’s self-created and more of an inside joke than anything. I’m not active on social media in the slightest, so most of what I hear and see comes from those around me. That is how the Pizza Movie memes came to my attention. But that’s exactly what a movie like this needs, and it’s usually in good fun. So I’m just really proud of the movie and that it got exactly what it needed.

The internet spotted a Post-it note on Jack’s desk about a scheduled FaceTime with Eleven, Mike, Will, Max and Lucas. Did you catch that on the day?

Dude, I caught it after we had shot so much stuff by that desk, and I was like, “Oh, that’s cool.” If people look harder, they’ll be able to see even more. There were like ten Stranger Things references, and I remember being like, “These are funny, but can we take a few off just because it’s a little on the nose? I feel like it’ll be a little too glaring.” And then I think they realized that we had probably already shot so many of them. I don’t even think Nick and Brian knew how many there were, but it was pretty funny. I was cool with it. 

One of the scenes that surprised me most in the final season of Stranger Things was when Dustin got jumped at the cemetery. It’s one of the most violent scenes in the whole series. 

Isn’t that weird, though? It really does feel like one of the biggest beatings any of us received. 

Did you expect the final product to be as brutal as it was? 

Yeah, they wanted it to be. A lot of the violence in Stranger Things is fantasy-type violence due to the sci-fi and supernatural elements. That’s where it usually lies. The violence feels Marvel-esque most of the time. But that scene just felt really human and really unfortunate and more down to earth. That’s why people might be more disturbed by it. I was too. But I knew it was going to be that way. The script was pretty descriptive. When we were reading it, we knew it was going to be pretty intense.

We had a few days to rehearse it and block it and make sure it was safe. We had a good idea of what it was going to look like, and then Nick Müller, our camera op, agreed that we could probably do it in one if he was able to watch how it was choreographed. So that’s what he did, and that’s what makes it really, really great. We don’t really cut away during it, and it looks brilliant. It’s one of my favorite scenes in the show based on Nick’s work and how it was shot. It’s awesome.

I theorized that it was the Duffers’ way of acknowledging that their audience has grown up and can handle such violence.

I’ve always thought that too. I don’t think they would’ve gone for something like that in one of the earlier seasons. It might’ve been a little too much. If 13-year-old Dustin was getting his ass kicked like that, it would be a very different show. If any of us were not technically adults, I think they would’ve felt bad having us do a scene like that. It’s ironic considering they have an 11-year-old snapping people’s necks in the first season. (Laughs.)

It was so interesting how the fan response to the finale mimicked the characters in a way. The characters created a story to cope with the loss of their friend, and then the fans created a theory about a secret finale to cope with the loss of their favorite show. 

For sure.

What was your first impression of that “Conformity Gate” groundswell? 

It was cool. It’s a testament to how much people love the show and how much they want to see from it, which is really special. Like I said, I don’t really engage online too much just because I get a little bit too invested whenever I do. So the first time I heard about it, I was walking in the city when someone stopped me and asked, “Is it coming out tonight?” And I said, “What’s that?” And they said, “The ninth episode.” And I was like, “Oh, no, no, no. There’s only eight.” 

I thought it was just a misunderstanding, and then they showed me all of the banter about it. And it turns out that they had canceled their date with a guy that night because they thought the ninth episode was coming out. So I pleaded with her: “Please just call him back. Go on that date. Don’t miss out on your date for this.”

So while it was fun to watch from afar, there was secondhand disappointment on my end because I felt bad having to say that nothing was coming. There were a lot of people genuinely really stoked for it. But that’d be pretty sick if it happened. Certain projects have been doing some pretty crazy publicity stunts lately, so I get why there was an idea.

Caleb McLaughlin told me that he thought the theory was “dumb.” He understood that it was coming from a place of love for the show, but he still didn’t mince words about it.

(Laughs.) Yeah, that sounds like Caleb. That’s really funny. We talked about it too, and I think he said the same thing to me.

He and Sadie Sink both believe Eleven is dead. Are you still pleading the fifth on this subject?

(Laughs.) Initially, I was like, I’m going to keep pleading the fifth. And then everybody else started saying what they thought, so maybe I will do the same. But I feel like it’d be such a bummer to get on that train and say that I think she’s dead as well. I definitely believe Dustin thinks she’s dead. He’s such a pragmatic, scientific dude who looks at all the evidence in front of him, and I don’t think he would truly believe it the way an optimist like Mike would. But for his friend, he will probably always say that he does believe she’s alive. 

But for me, I’m just going to say that I don’t know. I think she would be [dead], but I also see a world where Matt and Ross would flip it around at some point. I think that’s kind of their intention. So “I don’t know” is what I will say right now.

Caleb also shocked me when he said he’s only seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens out of all the Star Wars movies. Then he added that he hadn’t seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies until last year. You previously told me how Finn would get on your case to watch certain films such as Boogie Nights, so did Caleb’s cinematic blind spots frustrate him as well? 

I don’t think it drove him crazy. Caleb has really good taste in TV and movies; he just hasn’t jumped too far into the nerdy franchise world of it all. I know he watched the [Harry] Potters and loved them. He finally watched Lord of the Rings, but we’re still waiting on Star Wars. Finn sees adults who haven’t experienced certain franchises as an opportunity to introduce them. You then get to see somebody have what is usually a childhood experience later in life, and it’s really, really special. It’s very rare you come across someone who hasn’t seen The Empire Strikes Back’s best movie twist of all time, and it’s cool to get the opportunity to show somebody. So I think Finn finds that more exciting than anything else, and I do too.

We should give mention to Animal Farm. Did that commitment boil down to Andy Serkis and the chance to be directed by him?

Yeah, it did. A huge chunk of what drew me to that was working with him, especially in a world like that. He’s one of the most expressive, high-ceiling actors alive today, and I love being directed by actors. It’s very rare that you’re directed by somebody who can invest a lot of their time and space into understanding what that process looks like. I’ve never been able to tap into the level that he’s on, so watching him is just an absolute treat. He commits 100 percent as an  actor and a director. He played every character throughout the process over Zoom, which is crazy. 

So it was a really great experience, and I’ve loved the book for a very long time. It was one of those assignments in class that I didn’t groan at when it was assigned. I’ve always been excited to read Orwell, and I’ve read it many times since. And it’s a risk. It’s always hard to tackle a piece like that. They’ve tried to do it on screen before, and it’s fallen flat a good number of times. And what I loved so much about this take is that they were just unapologetic in taking a swing on it. There’s a bit of a “fuck it” mentality, and it has to be a swing because the novel was a swing. So that’s why I was drawn to it.

I think voice actors usually hear a scratch track in the booth, but Andy read all the characters live so you could have something to bounce off of in the moment? 

Yeah, he would do the voices. He didn’t go completely into it, but he’s a tremendous voice actor. So he would give a voice to Boxer or Snowball or Napoleon. And just to hear him do that — even half-assed, because he has so many other priorities to do as director — was very, very nice of him. I don’t even know if he recognizes how much that meant to me. I should tell him.

Voice roles sound like a working actor’s dream, especially since you can knock them out no matter where you are in the world. Is it also nice to have a break from the camera and all the moving parts and rigmarole of a typical set?

It’s cool, but I do love immersing myself in a setting. What’s great about voiceover is you channel everything through your voice. You don’t really have to be very body-conscious, so I can move around and jump around and feel how I’d like to feel. I don’t have to be aware of what might look physically crazy if it’s something that helps me feel connected vocally. I can just go for it. 

I would like to do more voice work, but I would also like to do some more voice projects that require me to do something other than my own voice. I’ve pretty much used my voice up to this point. People have said, “Hey, we love the quality that you already have, so just bring that.” Voice acting is some of the hardest performing to do, period. There are voice actors who’ve done hundreds of different things, and you wouldn’t recognize that it’s the same person in each part. That’s so admirable. So I don’t call myself a voice actor; I just say I’ve done myself in the voiceover process.

To close on Pizza Movie, if your worst nightmare was to chase after you with a chainsaw, what would it be visually represented as? 

So many of my nightmares are weirdly niche and/or vast — and they lack a physical entity. It would be something very Lovecraftian, if anything. I don’t like being alone very much, and I have a weird fear of boredom, so loneliness and boredom are two of my biggest fears. But I would probably benefit from being alone and being bored. That would probably be a good lesson to have at times. I just don’t know how that would physically manifest itself. How do you think loneliness and boredom would look as a physical being?

A black void perhaps? 

Yeah, a black void, but it’s got to have the ability to hold a chainsaw that it wants to stick up my ass, as specified in the movie. 

We’ll have to workshop this some more. 

Good idea.

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Pizza Movie is now streaming on Hulu.