Stranger Things 5: Linda Hamilton Weighed Retiring Before Joining Cast

Posted in: Netflix, Stranger Things, TV | Tagged: stranger things

Stranger Things 5: Linda Hamilton Weighed Retiring Before Joining Cast

Linda Hamilton reflects on contemplating retirement before joining Netflix's Stranger Things 5, working with Millie Bobby Brown, and more.

Published Sat, 20 Dec 2025 09:37:03 -0600
by Tom Chang
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Article Summary

• Linda Hamilton nearly retired before joining the cast of Stranger Things 5.
• She is a longtime fan of the series and deeply admires Millie Bobby Brown's talent and humility.
• Hamilton shares her relief that Brown remained grounded despite early success and fame.
• Her role in Stranger Things 5 came just after she voiced exhaustion from demanding acting schedules.

Linda Hamilton is well aware that anything she does at this stage of her career is gravy, having fulfilled not only a well-rounded filmography of diverse roles, but she also reinvented herself as a take-no-prisoners badass in the action world since her iconic turn in Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991). It's that same seriousness in that archetype she embraced in her return to the role in 2019's Dark Fate, SYFY's Resident Alien as General Eleanor Wright, and now as Dr. Kay in the fifth and final season of Netflix's Stranger Things. Before joining the Duffers' series, Hamilton was initially hesitant to take on the role as a fan of the series, telling Variety about her fandom of series star Millie Bobby Brown, who plays Eleven/Jane, the mysterious psychically-enhanced youth with telekinetic powers, and where she was in her career before embracing the opportunity.

Linda Hamilton on Millie Bobby Brown and Initial Reluctance to Join Stranger Things

After Hamilton revealed that she followed Stranger Things, "From the beginning, and it never subsided. I know a lot of people that just sort of checked out after Season 2 or 3. I don't know why, because I just find it mesmerizing." As far as her reasoning, "Well, the concept is fantastic, and it does bring back the '80s, but really, it's Millie. She is just stunning to watch. I'm just her biggest fan. I really am."

Upon Hamilton's initial impressions of Brown, "I had not met her before. And you know, truthfully, I was just hoping she wasn't a little diva who had somehow become completely soured by all the early success. And I was not disappointed. She was just so lovely. And really good." She continued, "I loved her, just immediately. Thank God she's not an asshole, because that would just cripple me. She's so unspoiled and as talented as I have witnessed. She's got it, man, that girl has got it. So she invited me to her trailer where I met her family and all the dogs — well, not all of the dogs, apparently they are, like, 10 more that I haven't met. She's just open and kind and sweet and all the things that we would like our young leading ladies to be, right? I have worked with some children — not that she's a child now — who, from the first to the third time I worked with them, just became little assholes. Because this business — if you don't have your head on straight, and it's hard to when you're a child — can really fill you up with the wrong notions of what matters, and she seems to be really grounded in the things that truly matter. I'm just proud of her."

As she got the call for the Netflix series, "It's funny, because I had called my agent maybe a month before and said, 'Dude, I gotta retire.' I was heading up to Vancouver to shoot Resident Alien, and I was having a really bad hip problem. It just takes so much. The year before, I had made eight trips to Vancouver from New Orleans during that season. It's just really hard. And I was like, I just can't tough it out anymore. And of course, my agent was like, 'Oh, you don't mean that.' Then he calls me, and he says, 'Stranger Things called and asked if you were available. And I said yes.' So I laughed at that, like, no one takes me seriously at all. He signed me up for a year."

For more, including Hamilton's interaction with Matt and Ross Duffer, how working on Stranger Things differs from her other work, and more, you can check out the entire interview. Part II premieres on Christmas Day, and the finale, on New Year's Eve, on Netflix.

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