Gaten Matarazzo Says Living With Costar Finn Wolfhard Got “Disgusting”

27 November 2025

Finn Wolfhard and Gaten Matarazzo attend the fan event for the Netflix series 'Stranger Things' on Nov. 18, 2025. Credit: Annette Riedl/picture alliance via Getty

For fans of Stranger Things the final season arrival on November 26, 2025 felt like both a long-awaited return and a bittersweet farewell. Behind the scenes, cast members have been opening up about what life was really like off-camera while filming the final episodes including some revelations that don’t quite fit the glamorous image of Hollywood stardom. Among these, Gaten Matarazzo offered a starkly honest glimpse into what happened when he and longtime friend and co-star Finn Wolfhard moved into a shared apartment during production.

On a recent episode of the “Dinner’s on Me” podcast with Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Matarazzo described a living situation that he likened to a college dorm: messy, chaotic, and slowly falling apart. A few months into their tenancy, he admitted, he’d walk into the apartment and think, “This place is disgusting.” Clothes, dishes, and chaos piled up as both roommates seemed to fall into a pattern of matching energy neither one taking real responsibility. “We got along so well and had been so close for so long that we didn’t really hold each other to a standard,” he confessed.

It’s a confession that resonates beyond celebrity living, many of us have known the reality of two (or more) friends sharing a space, getting comfortable, cutting corners, and collectively sliding into clutter. Matarazzo admitted that their apartment reached a level of disarray where they eventually avoided inviting other cast mates over. “We would plan to meet at yours,” he recalled one friend asking, and they would respond in unison: “No. Do not come 10 feet near our home.”

Still, despite the dirt, the disorder, the dishes, the roommates never let the mess break the friendship. Matarazzo says they eventually got better about cleaning up learning that cohabitation isn’t just shared space, it’s shared maintenance. More than that: the experience didn’t end their friendship. In fact, for both, it marked a meaningful if messy chapter as production wrapped up on one of Netflix’s biggest shows.

This unfiltered admission is a sharp contrast to the polished images we usually see of celebrities: red-carpet glamour, magazine covers, social-media gloss. Instead, viewers get a reminder that these young actors, though famous, are still navigating adolescence and early adulthood with all the sloppiness, impulsiveness, and camaraderie that comes with it.

The timing of Matarazzo’s remarks makes them feel especially poignant. As the final season of Stranger Things unfolds across eight episodes with the first four now streaming, and a finale scheduled for December 31, fans are not just watching the fictional arcs of Hawkins, Indiana, but also witnessing the behind-the-scenes reality that shaped the cast’s relationships and daily lives.

For many viewers, these honest disclosures humanize celebrities in a meaningful way. They show that fame doesn’t erase messy apartments or overdue laundry. For Matarazzo and Wolfhard, that time living together, chaotic as it may have been, became part of their journey from child actors to young adults, forging a shared memory they seem to look back on with a mix of cringe and affection.

As Stranger Things closes its decade-long run, the stories behind the scenes may endure long after the final credits roll. Matarazzo’s comment about the apartment being “disgusting” may spark laughter or nods of recognition from anyone who’s ever roomed with friends. But perhaps more importantly, it offers a quiet reminder: even in a world of special effects and supernatural threats, messy reality is universal.