It’s official — UC Irvine met “Stranger Things” star Gaten Matarazzo before the final season of the sci-fi series was released.
On Tuesday, April 29, UC Irvine welcomed Matarazzo to speak at the ASUCI Speaker Commission’s biannual ZotTalks series. During the Q&A hosted by ASUCI Speakers intern Summer Phan, Matarazzo spoke about growing up in the limelight, beginning his career on Broadway and advocating for people with cleidocranial dysplasia (CCD).
Matarazzo is best known for his role as Dustin Henderson in the ongoing Netflix TV series, “Stranger Things,” which chronicles a group of nerdy adolescents navigating a supernatural version of a small town in 1980s Indiana.
The series rose to popularity after its first season in 2016, when Matarazzo was 14 years old. “Stranger Things” built a massive following through the release of each season, with the latest released in 2022.
“And we finished filming the last season of ‘Stranger Things’ in December,” Matarazzo said at the event. “So it is not my fault anymore that it’s not out. Now, my job’s finished, so I’m with you.”
Matarazzo began as a theater actor. He played Benjamin in “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” at 9 years old and Gavroche in “Les Misérables” at 10 years old during his time on Broadway.
The 22-year-old actor revealed that among the mediums of theater, film and television, theater is still his favorite. Matarazzo deemed his experience in the industry “a very interesting way to grow up, for sure.”
During the ZotTalk, Matarazzo credited his parents for being consistently involved in his passion for acting. He admitted that he would not have enjoyed the experience as much without their support.
“They just wanted to ensure that … I was doing it for the right reasons, and [I] couldn’t count how many times my parents would ask [if] I wanted to do [acting],” Matarazzo said. “But it’s a question that I needed to repeatedly be asked because you change so rapidly from the ages of 7 to 9, let alone 7 to 22.”
Matarazzo spoke about his Broadway role in “Dear Evan Hansen” in 2022, where he played Jared Kleinman. Although the show was unexpectedly cut short, Matarazzo looks back on the experience fondly and uses it as an opportunity to recognize the unpredictable nature of the entertainment industry.
“That’s how it goes; you never really do know, because you see a show as successful as ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ that was consistently doing well and just things didn’t really work out,” Matarazzo said.
Matarazzo struggles to articulate exactly what it is he loves about acting.
“And I’ve always loved doing it, and it’s never really easy to describe, and sometimes I ask myself that question, I’m like, why? Why am I doing this?” Matarazzo said. “And then … I’ll get back on set, and I’m like, ‘Oh, great, that’s why. Because this is home.’”
Alongside being an actor, Matarazzo has been an advocate for people with CCD by working with the nonprofit organization CCD Smiles. In 2017, Matarazzo and his family helped make the organization, founded by Dr. Kelly Wosnik, officially recognized by the Internal Revenue System.
According to Matarazzo, CCD is greatly under-researched and he has never met anyone affected by it. Two primary goals of CCD Smiles are to fund research and build a community.
The writers of “Stranger Things” wrote Matarazzo’s character, Dustin, to have the same condition, which had an unexpectedly widespread reaction.
Matarazzo admitted feeling pressure to represent the entire community.
“I would love to get more people with the condition who have public platforms to also speak consistently,” Matarazzo said. “Just for the sake of having more voices, because I could barely even begin to scratch the surface on what the experience with CCD is like, especially because I’ve been lucky enough to be able to treat my symptoms over the course of my teenage years.”
At the end of the event, students had the opportunity to ask Matarazzo questions. Third-year business economics major Liliana Tiscareno started binging the Netflix series during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. She was drawn to the world of Hawkins, Indiana, the fictional town where the series takes place.
“I was so nervous, but I was so excited because he just seemed so welcoming and he’s so cool. He didn’t seem too intimidating or anything; he was just willing to have a conversation and answer any questions we had,” Tiscareno told New University.
During the event, Phan asked Matarazzo if he thinks of acting as his “calling.”
“I’m kind of a believer that you make your own calling,” Matarazzo said. “I don’t think that there’s something that you’re destined to do before you make the decision to do it. I think you have every bit of free will to go out and figure out what that is, and if you’re not feeling it, then don’t do it. And if you are feeling it for a while, then one day you stop, stop doing it.”
For students interested in learning more about him, Matarazzo chronicles his acting career on his Instagram account and his story on the story page of CCD Smiles.
Emma Richman is a Features Intern for the spring 2025 quarter. She can be reached at richmane@uci.edu.
Edited by Alyssa Villagonzalo and Jaheem Conley