Stranger Things Creators Say Cast Aging Is Overblown — Deeper Voices Are the Real Challenge
Worried the Stranger Things kids have aged out? The Duffer brothers have a killer scene that turns growing up into the show’s secret weapon.
Stranger Things season 5 is finally around the corner, and yes, it has been a full decade since the show first started filming. Naturally, people are worried the kids are going to look like grad students masquerading as freshmen. The Duffers say: relax.
"It's not as dramatic as people think," Matt Duffer told Variety.
About that age gap
When season 1 dropped in 2016, the cast and their characters lined up pretty neatly age-wise for the show's 1983 setting. But the story itself only covers roughly four years total. Cut to 2025, and some of these actors are now way older than their on-screen ages. On paper, that sounds alarming. On camera, the Duffers say viewers don't clock it.
They actually had their biggest wake-up call way back on season 3, when the cast came back looking older than the scripts assumed. They pivoted fast and wrote the characters a bit older, and according to them, the transition worked because the jumps aren't as extreme anymore.
The nerdy production trick that proves their point
Season 4, episode 4 has a sneaky timeline test. Max (Sadie Sink) writes letters in the basement, then heads outside. Those two pieces of the same scene were shot a year apart thanks to the pre- and post-lockdown schedule shuffle. One chunk came at the very start of production, the other at the bitter end, a full year later. The Duffers swear no one has ever noticed the cut, and honestly, they are not wrong.
The one thing they still wrangle: voices
The face-aging stuff they can get away with. The voice changes? Trickier. Teenage boys hit that lower register whether the plot likes it or not. The Duffers say they're actively managing it this season. Case in point: Jake Connelly, who plays a new character, recorded lines after his voice dropped compared to when they shot him. They used EQ to smooth it out and, after a small panic, decided it sounds fine.
What season 5 is actually about
We're back in Hawkins for a final showdown with Vecna. The returning crew includes Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Sadie Sink, Joe Keery, Maya Hawke, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, David Harbour, Winona Ryder, and Jamie Campbell Bower. It's the endgame run: save the town, save each other, slam the door on the Upside Down.
Release plan
- Volume One: November 26, 2025
- Volume Two: December 25, 2025
- Finale: December 31, 2025
Bottom line: the timeline math is weird, but the show has already cheated it on screen without anyone blinking. If the Duffers aren't sweating the ages, I'm not either. The clock is ticking on Vecna, not the cast's birth certificates.