Stars of Stranger Things ’emotional’ as they say goodbye to hit Netflix series

Stranger Things cast members including Charlie Heaton and Natalia Dyer have described how “emotional” it has been to say goodbye to the hit Netflix show.

The supernatural coming-of-age drama, which started in 2016, will have its fifth and final season released in three volumes beginning on November 27 in the UK.

The first series followed a psychokinetic girl named Eleven, played by Millie Bobby Brown, as she escaped from a laboratory in Hawkins and made friends with a group of young boys who embark on a mission to find their friend Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) after he becomes lost in an alternate reality.

Speaking at a London screening, Heaton, 31, who plays Will’s brother Jonathan, told the PA news agency: “It’s emotional, saying goodbye.

“(I’m) excited now that we’re sharing it with people.

“I’m going to miss the people. I’m going to miss my cast. We’re family, we’ve grown up together.”

Dyer, 30, who plays Nancy Wheeler, said the end of the series is “bittersweet”, and added: “I think the hardest thing is knowing that you’re not going to get to work with these people in the same capacity.”

Caleb McLaughlin, who plays Lucas Sinclair, said the show and its magnitude often gets compared to Harry Potter, adding that it will be remembered as a “classic” that “lives on forever”.

“It’s sad. It’s something that I still love. I still love the cast, I still love this story,” he told PA.

“I’m not ready. I mean, I’m ready to say goodbye, because all great things come to an end… it’s bittersweet but I’m just grateful for the whole experience.”

The actor, who was 14 when the first series aired, added: “This was a part of my development.

“I was on the show in my adolescence, some crucial years of my life.

“So everything I’ve learned here has kind of moulded me into the man that I am today and will forever be a part of that experience in my life.

“I feel like your teenage years are the moments that mould you into who you are and how you think and your decisions.”

US actor and musician Joe Keery, who plays Steve Harrington, said: “The cool thing that I’ve been able to see is that people are just starting the show right now.

“They’re kids who are 11 or 12, and that was me with Harry Potter. That was me with Star Wars. So to be a part of something like that is crazy.”

Brown, Schnapp, Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler, Sadie Sink, who plays Max Mayfield, and Gaten Matarazzo, who plays Dustin Henderson, were among the other cast members at the London screening on Thursday.

The final series of the show, which has been created by the Duffer Brothers, will see the friendship group come up against evil villain Vecna for a final time.

Stranger Things season five will be released on Netflix in three parts, all dropping at 1am in the UK.

Volume one will arrive on November 27, volume two on December 26 and the finale on January 1.