Gaten Matarazzo Reveals First Encounter with Vecna on ‘Stranger Things’ Set

Gaten Matarazzo, who plays the nerd  Dustin Henderson on the Stranger Things series appeared on The Tonight Show and shared the story of his encounter with Vecna on the set of the record-breaking series. Not only this, but he also shared the feeling of returning to Broadway to star in Dear Evan Hansen.

Gates Returns to Broadway…

Jimmy Fallon started by introducing the musical “Dear Evans Hansen” and congratulated Gaten Matarazzo for returning to Broadway. Jimmy asked Gaten, “Is it like riding a bike, do you go, “Oh, I know how to do this–Broadway?” Gaten replied, “It’s more–So if that’s riding a bike, this is kind of like getting on a motorcycle, just because I haven’t been–I haven’t run on a show for a long term consistently since I was 12, and that was before my voice changed. I was only doing four shows a week then.”

He continued, “Now I am doing eight. This show is not kind to most of the performers in it. He revealed that he is playing Jared and is excited about his role. When asked about the release, Gaten stated that the show opens on July 19.

All Praises For Suzie…

Taking about Gaten’s habit of singing “Oh, My God!” which annoyed most of the star cast, Jimmy Fallon asked Gaten, “In the show, I guess I got to see “Never Ending Story”…Running Up That Hill, by the way, How about that? Gaten replied, “It’s great for me because Running Up That Hill had replaced Never Ending Story.” Remember, when Dustin sings the song with his girlfriend Suzie on the phone in exchange for the codes?

Gaten was all praises about Suzie. He said, “Gabby, who plays Suzie is just awesome and incredible, and she too is a Broadway kid like him. He continued, “When she came on the set, we like heard it like 10 minutes before we shot, and we got a harmony track set up and all that jazz.”

Gaten’s Encounter With Vecna…

Gaten Matarazzo appeared on The Tonight Show and got praised for his charades skills. He was then asked about Vecna. Jimmy Fallon asked it about Sadie, who played the character of Max on Stranger Things Season 4. Jimmy said, “When Sadie was on the show…I was talking about the character Vecna and catching up about the new character.”

He showed a picture of Vecna and revealed that when he asked Sadie, was she frightened of Vecna, she said “Actually no, because I had. The first time I met Vecna, he was eating a sandwich. They both burst out in laughter as Jimmy recalled his conversation with Sadie Sink on The Tonight Show.

Gaten, however, narrated that he saw him once during the filming of Volume 1 and said, “I saw him like one time and we were doing, like, I was in costume and we were doing 3-D scans…Like you have to go into your room and like, take a bunch of pictures all around coz there’s a lot of animation on the show, especially this year. And so it was kind of, like, a little line of, like, the cast in like costume whenever they had free time during filming.”

The 19-year-old actor revealed that it was then that he saw Vecna sitting there and he looked over. He said, “I was like, Hi. It’s great to see you. I hadn’t seen him since the table read. And he was just like, how are you? It’s good to see you, like just in a lawn chair, like feet up, and like, the whole half, like done up in Vecna gear. It was unsettling and just bonkers.”

Jimmy asked curiously, “From the waist down wearing, like sweatpants? Gaten replied, “Yea, pretty much I think if I remember correctly. I was kind of drawn toward his messed-up face.  But…Like he looked exhausted.”

Well, if you haven’t seen Stranger Things Season 4, the fourth season is set several months later, in March 1986. Joyce, Will, Eleven, and Jonathan have moved to Lenora, California, where Eleven struggles with the loss of her powers and gets bullied in school.

Meanwhile, a new monster named Vecna from Upside Down begins targeting the residents of Hawkins. To help her fight off this monster, Dr Sam Owens and Dr Martin Brenner take Eleven to a facility to help her regain her powers. Meanwhile, Joyce and Murray fly to Russia to rescue Hopper from the Gulag at Kamchatka, where a captive Demogorgon also resides.

Jimmy recalled his own story with his show’s band “The Roots”. Jimmy said, “that reminds me that “The Roots” and I did a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. And we’re on the float and we’re on a bus. You know they put on all the people that are going to be on the floats on a bus before you go on the float. And so, it was me and The Roots and Ronald McDonald.”

He said, Ronald McDonald was so great and the guy was so nice but he was dressed like Ronald McDonald and he was having a normal conversation like drinking a coffee and the subway was crazy.  Jimmy said he had to tell him to stop because he was dressed like that but he had a full hour and a half conversation with him.

FYI, the character of Vecna in Stranger Things Season 4 is played by Jamie Campbell Bower. The man behind turning Jamie into Vecna is renowned prosthetic artiste Barrie Gower, known for his work in Game of Thrones, No Time to Die and Chernobyl. Well, Stranger Things fans raise your hands because Volume 2 is coming out tomorrow (July 1)!