Maya Hawke teases "heartbreaking" final season of Stranger Things

Maya Hawke joined Stranger Things as Robin Buckley in season 3, working alongside Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) at Scoops Ahoy in the Starcourt Mall. With her witty personality, Robin quickly became a fan-favorite member of the team, and she'll play a key role in the show's fifth and final season.

Like other seasons of the Netflix series, Stranger Things 5 has endured myriad delays. Filming was pushed back in 2023 due to the WGA writer's and SAG-AFTRA actor's strikes. Production finally got underway in January and will continue throughout the year. However, this doesn't mean we'll see it hit screens anytime soon; Hawke is pretty sure production will run late.

“We started in January and we’re in the first third. That’s how I’m gonna avoid breaking my contract is by making you do math,” Hawke told TheWrap. “We’re supposedly through the first quarter in the first third, but I bet it will go late.”

Maya Hawke predicts that filming on Stranger Things 5 will "go late"

Speaking to ET, Hawke explained that filming these last batch of episodes is already an emotional experience. "It's already starting to be heartbreaking, you know? I mean, it's the end of a really long journey," she said. "Longer for some of my castmates, even, than for me. So it's really sentimental."

Not only does she feel a great responsibility to the fans, but also to the rest of the cast, who've been working on the show for years before she joined. "But as a late addition cast member, I feel like it's my job to be here to facilitate their feelings and just be grateful and excited to have been a part of it at all."

Moreover, she feels proud to bring her joyful energy onto the set, which can sometimes feel like a stressful place given the heavy workload. "We shoot for a long time, so it's kind of reinvigorating [to bring] the joy and finding it everyday and making it new. It's a really fun thing to do."

Stranger Things 5 will be the final battle against Vecna, the all-powerful lord of the Upside Down. In the final moments of season 4, the hellish Upside Down landscape began to spill into the town of Hawkins, Indiana, putting the group in their most perilous situation yet. This means war.

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