Gaten Matarazzo on ‘LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy’ and Saying Goodbye to ‘Stranger Things’
As the star of LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy, Gaten Matarazzo has joined his all-time favorite franchise that he often references in his career-launching franchise of Stranger Things.
On the season four premiere of the latter, Matarazzo’s Dustin Henderson quoted Han Solo’s famous line, “Never tell me the odds,” which was a retort to C-3PO’s mathematical skepticism amid Han’s daring asteroid field navigation in The Empire Strikes Back. Well, Matarazzo — as his Force-powered Lego Star Wars character Sig Greebling — can now say that he’s also been on the receiving end of C-3PO’s odds. Anthony Daniels reprised his legacy character on Rebuild the Galaxy, only it was an ominous bounty hunter version of his protocol droid, since Sig reconfigured the very nature of the Star Wars galaxy by removing “the Cornerstone” (a glowing Lego) from a lost Jedi temple. Thus, Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit’s four-part miniseries explores many fun role reversals and dynamic changes, such as Jedi Jabba the Hutt and Darth Jar Jar.
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The New Jersey native’s admission into Star Wars is reminiscent of the franchise jump that his dear friend, Atlanta housemate, brother-in-cinephilia and fellow Stranger Things castmate Finn Wolfhard has also made. His enlistment as a Ghostbuster in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and Frozen Empire (2024), following their Ghostbusters Halloween costumes on season two of Stranger Things, is another example of becoming the very thing they once referenced. Matarazzo also gets to say that he toplined a voice cast that features one Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker.
“To play one character for nearly half a century and be widely known for that one character, I can imagine it’s fulfilling, but very, very exhausting. So to have [Mark Hamill] come back and do this is really, really kind,” Matarazzo tells The Hollywood Reporter. “He elevates the show so much, and he also accentuates how brilliant the show is since people from the original trilogy wanted to be a part of it. We’re eternally grateful.”
Matarazzo has been a Star Wars fan for as long as he can remember, and his introduction came at age six by way of George Lucas and Dave Filoni’s The Clone Wars animated series that aired on the Cartoon Network from 2008 to 2013. When Matarazzo’s family caught on to what he was watching, they quickly intervened so that he could instead experience the franchise’s impactful lore through the original trilogy first.
“I’m a Star Wars fiend, and so when I was approached, I was like, ‘I don’t care if the script is dog shit; I’m doing it.’ And, of course, the script wasn’t that,” Matarazzo says. “So everything just fell into place to be a full-blown dream project that was basically a fan film. Lucasfilm let [showrunners] Dan [Hernandez] and Benji [Samit] get away with pretty much whatever they wanted, which was a miracle in and of itself.”
Matarazzo’s producer and director on Stranger Things, Shawn Levy, is also currently in development on a Star Wars movie. Naturally, the young cast has ribbed Levy about it, but no one has performed an impromptu audition by mimicking a lightsaber fight à la Dustin and Steve (Joe Keery) in season three. Matarazzo thinks Levy is exactly what Star Wars needs, and he’d, of course, love to be a part of his project in any capacity.
“We’ve all been making little bits about it, for sure … He would bring such a levity and a joy to Star Wars, and that’s what the franchise definitely needs right now. So I’m here,” Matarazzo says with a laugh.
As for the long-delayed final season of Stranger Things, Matarazzo is getting closer and closer to the year-long shoot’s home stretch, and part of him wishes that he could turn back time now that the end is near. In between seasons, the same adjectives of “biggest, darkest, scariest” have often been used to describe whatever season is coming up, but Matarazzo confirms that Stranger Things 5 is truly all of those things.
“That’s the goal. That’s certainly the intention behind writing it. The one consistency of this show is that it just grows every year in scale and size and in the message that they want to bring,” Matarazzo shares. “So this season is not different in the slightest, and I knew that they had prepped that, initially. They said, ‘Hey, this one is going to be really, really big. We’re not going to candy-coat it: it’s a full year shoot.’ And that led to a big reaction of, like, ‘Oh, so we’re really going for it.’ So we have been [going for it] and we still are.”
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Matarazzo also discusses the similarities between him and his Star Wars character, before defending Gen Z’s movie consumption habits.
Well, for the rest of your life, you get to say that you led a Star Wars cast with Mark Hamill. Did they have you right then and there?
I actually didn’t know Mark was going to be on board when they sent the project over, but it was still a no-brainer, initially. I’m a Star Wars fiend, and so when I was approached, I was like, “I don’t care if the script is dog shit; I’m doing it.” And, of course, the script wasn’t that. I was absolutely taken by the ingenuity, creativity and originality of Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit, our two writers who I’ve admired for a long time. So everything just fell into place to be a full-blown dream project that was basically a fan film. I was like, “This is going to be insane,” and Lucasfilm let Dan and Benji get away with pretty much whatever they wanted, which was a miracle in and of itself.
Did you get a call one day from your showrunners, saying, “Hey, we’ve added a new cast member. His name is Mark Hamill”?
(Laughs.) I remember reading scenes with Luke in the booth, and I was like, “Is there a world where we get Mark for this?” I meant it more as a bit, but they were like, “We’re talking with him now.” And I was like, “No way. You’re shitting me.” And then, two days later, they were like, “Dude, we got him.” So they were as shocked as I was, but I think Mark liked the new fun spin that Luke took.
He’s been playing Luke since 1977. To play one character for nearly half a century and be widely known for that one character, I can imagine it’s fulfilling, but very, very exhausting. So to have him come back and do this is really, really kind. He elevates the show so much, and he also accentuates how brilliant the show is since people from the original trilogy wanted to be a part of it. We’re eternally grateful.
Different generations all experienced the MCU at the same time, but Star Wars is so much older that each generation has its own entry point. For some, it was the original trilogy in theaters or on LaserDisc.
Empire on LaserDisc still looks so, so good.
For others, it was the prequels or sequels in theaters. What was your introduction?
I was born in 2002, so that was following the release of The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. And as I grew up, The Clone Wars was on TV, so that was my initial introduction. But my mom nipped that in the bud instantly. She was like, “Nope, I’m not going to let any of this get spoiled.” I was just a mindless 6-year-old watching TV, and she was like, “No, we’re going to dive in deep.” My uncle was also in town from out of state, and he’s an absolutely massive Star Wars nerd, so we sat down and watched the original trilogy altogether. My first-and-only obsession was then born, and there was no going back.
When did your recording sessions go down in relation to your other work?
I was doing theater in New York at the time, and that made it a lot easier because most of your afternoons are pretty free. You only go in for a show in the evening unless it’s a two-show day. So that made it really easy initially, and then I started recording some pickups for the season after they started the editing process. We had to get back in for ADR and stuff, and that was around the time that I started working on Stranger Things 5, which made it a little bit hard because of the consistent schedule. But they were really willing to work on weekends, and it was a real blessing that they were able to work with me on that. I love voiceovers because even if you’re working on other things, you can wiggle it into your schedule.
You play a young nerf herder named Sig Greebling, whose Force powers qualify him to be what’s known as a Force Builder. Did you end up overlapping or relating to your character at all?
I instantly felt related to the character. [Rebuild the Galaxy] is the first time in Star Wars that a Star Wars fan character has spearheaded a project. It’s also the first story to take place after all three trilogies, so we had the fun opportunity to include all of the stories. Instead of being a Star Wars nerd in his world, he’s really just a history nerd, and so I would also call myself a history nerd. He has the same enthusiasm for these stories that I did growing up. Anytime I read something on a script page that surprised me or excited me, I would read it in that context, and most of the time, that’s probably the take that they used.
In his day to day, Sig is a small town kid, and I grew up in a small town in Jersey, which I really loved. I didn’t really want to be anywhere else for a long time, and neither did Sig. He never really wanted to leave his home planet of Fenessa, but he gets whisked away on a pretty intense adventure elsewhere. That felt similar to how I started working in this industry. I just started doing it for fun, and then, out of nowhere, I was heading to New York City, which felt like a different planet from where I lived.
Yeah, he shares stories from the Star Wars galaxy with his fellow young villagers, and I thought the show made a rather profound point that Sig, the storyteller, had to grapple with becoming the story.
Weirdly enough, they didn’t baby the show. Of course, it’s a family show that kids are meant to watch, but they never dumbed it down. That’s what’s so great about Dan and Benji. They’ve made family-oriented projects before, and they recognize that kids are smart and that they don’t really want to be talked down to. They can pick up on the nuances of a complex story and really enjoy it. So it’s really admirable, and it makes for a better show.
Unaware of the consequences, he removes “the Cornerstone” from a secret Jedi temple, throwing his galaxy into disarray. What do you consider to be your Cornerstone? Excluding your iPhone, what would throw your world out whack if it was removed from your life?
My family. They’re just such a grounding force in my life. Without them, I would probably be a terrible person, and I would like not to be one. (Laughs.) So they consistently ensure that I do not end up becoming one, and I think it’s just home in general. I travel quite a lot for what I do, and that makes me value where I’m from so much more. So my manager will admit that it’s really hard to get me out of New York where I live now. I grew up in Jersey, but I’ve found a really consistent home in New York City that I love very much. So the places that keep me grounded, the minute those are removed, my life goes to a heightened level of chaos, which I’ve experienced a few times.
Because Sig’s actions remix the elements of Star Wars, was there one reversal that you were most delighted by such as Darth Jar Jar?
So it was Darth Jar Jar, and I was a huge contributor to the no longer myth that Darth Jar Jar is a canon character. But now, even though it was done just as a bit, I love that they spent so much time creating this five-minute sequence to say that Greedo shot first when Greedo and Leia are the ones that end up together. I think it’s so dumb and so funny, and it’s just so Dan and Benji. I was reading the two pages leading up to it, and I was like, “You did not just do this.” But they did, and I love it so much.
I thought it was ingenious casting to have you and Tony Revolori play brothers, not just because you both have similar tones of voice. Has that comparison still been made a lot so far?
It has, and I didn’t expect that. I don’t know if they knew that going in, but weirdly enough, we do have a similar cadence to the way we go about our voiceover work. And ultimately, when I watched it, I thought we complemented each other pretty well in that department. We didn’t work together in the booth at all, so it was just a matter of Chris [Buckley], our director, and Dan and Benji, our writers, piecing together what they thought fit. So they did a wonderful job, and I only really got to know Tony recently during the press tour. He’s now a good bud, and I’m grateful for him.
Stranger Things producer-director Shawn Levy is developing a Star Wars movie.
He is!
Once he returned to the Stranger Things set, post-Deadpool & Wolverine commitments, did anyone stage a lightsaber fight for him to see? Are people trying to plant seeds for him to remember down the road during casting?
(Laughs.) I haven’t seen that happen, but this is a good idea. We’ve all been making little bits about it, for sure, but he’s got so much on his plate right now. He’s been going and going and going, and I’m really excited for him. Of course, he’s a very established director who’s done some of my favorite works even before he worked on Stranger Things, but all of these new projects are well deserved. He would bring such a levity and a joy to Star Wars, and that’s what the franchise definitely needs right now. So I’m here. (Laughs.)
Is Stranger Things 5 the “biggest, darkest, scariest” season yet?
(Laughs.) I think that’s the goal. That’s certainly the intention behind writing it. The one consistency of this show is that it just grows every year in scale and size and in the message that they want to bring. So this season is not different in the slightest, and I knew that they had prepped that, initially. They said, “Hey, this one is going to be really, really big. We’re not going to candy-coat it: it’s a full year shoot.” And that led to a big reaction of, like, “Oh, so we’re really going for it.” So we have been [going for it] and we still are. I’m excited for people to see it.
Saying goodbye to a life-changing opportunity is always hard, so is part of you glad that the final two seasons have been delayed this long?
If you were to ask me that last year, I probably would’ve been like, “No, let’s do it. Let’s get to it.” I’ve always been anxious to do it and I love to do it, so any delay in the process is certainly frustrating. But now that we are getting towards the end of our filming process for the fifth season, yeah, I’m asking for a Time-Turner. It’s been a pretty jarring thing to realize how quickly it all flew by. I remember so many things from that first season so vividly as if it was yesterday. We were so young, and it was such a weird, wild experience that it kind of blended together. So it’s not that I remember the process of filming season one incredibly sharply, but there are a few distinct things that feel like they just happened. And at this point, I’ve almost been doing Stranger Things longer than I haven’t. It’s taken about a decade of my life and it’s the most formative decade of my life. So I’ll always be really grateful, and coming to terms with letting that go is increasingly difficult, for sure, in a work sense and in a life sense. You can always expect that next season, work-wise and emotionally. So it’s going to be a different adjustment and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Pairing Dustin with whomever, such as Steve, Erika or Eddie, is always one of the show’s secret weapons. I’m not asking you to identify anyone, but does Dustin have another fun new pairing in season five?
What’s really fun about this one is that they want to highlight the characters that we’ve known and loved so much from day one. So I think they’re doing that really, really well, and I think everybody in the show can be expected to be paired differently from what we’ve come to expect. It elevates the character work quite a lot and gives everybody a lot of fun opportunities. So across the board, that may be happening, and maybe less so with Dustin, but that’s been fun to explore too.
Let me try that another way.
(Laughs.) Give it a go!
Are you working with anyone that you’ve never really worked with before?
To say yes would be misleading, interestingly enough. There’s a good balance of familiarity and keeping that family close, but also seeing how much we can elevate these characters with each other by mixing and matching. So I’m going to say yes and no. I know that’s frustrating and seems like a cop out, but I think that’s a good and honest articulation of that.
You made a point on Michael Rosenbaum’s show that knocked him sideways; you said that you were completely content if you’re forever most known for Stranger Things. But I want to remind you of your former co-star Sean Astin. There was a time when he was forever going to be known as Mikey from The Goonies. Then there was a time when he was forever going to be known as Rudy from Rudy. And then there was a time when he was forever going to be known as Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings. And now, to younger viewers, he’s Bob from Stranger Things, first and foremost. So you never really know how these things will go.
Yeah, not at all. I’ve always admired the way Sean has navigated the industry. There’s a lot of striking similarities between how he went about the beginning of his career. He was such a kind person when he was on set with us for one season. We were very young, and I didn’t really get any scene work with him at all. So it was very rare that I got to overlap with him on set directly, and I wish I could have gotten to work on screen with him more consistently. But anytime we were there on set, he would always check in to make sure we were good, and he was really open about giving advice. It’s probably something that resonated with him as a kid in the industry, and it was a very different industry when he was growing up in it. There’s a lot more emphasis now on protections for kids and making sure that they’re safe, educated and okay emotionally. So he was always a big contributor to making sure that we felt safe in that context, and he’s just a very, very good guy with a career I’d love to emulate.
And you’re right. It’s such an interesting thing that you articulated: “Oh, you’re only going to be known for this and then you’re only going to be known for this.” At a certain point, you just have a full repertoire. There’s no pigeonholing when you keep doing so much iconic work. So he’s had a very successful and dynamic career that one could only hope to emulate.
Winona Ryder made some waves recently when she remarked that she’s perplexed by her younger castmates’ indifference to cinema, and I know that she wasn’t talking about you or Finn Wolfhard. What have you watched lately that you’ve enjoyed?
My taste in movies has expanded quite a lot from living with Finn in Atlanta when we’re filming together. I’ve never met a bigger film buff than him, and he has shown me a lot of classics that I hadn’t seen before. His favorite movie of all time is Boogie Nights, and he was trying to get me to watch it for a while until I finally did. And then we watched another [Paul Thomas Anderson] classic in Magnolia around the same time. One of my favorite recent ones that I weirdly didn’t know anything about was [Terry Gilliam’s] Brazil, which is one of the coolest conceptual films to succeed. It’s one of those movies that I don’t think would get made today. A lot of executives don’t necessarily like to take risks, and that movie is full of them. So that was a really, really big one. I was in the room when he watched [Doug Liman’s] Go recently, and that was really, really fun. So he’s got really eclectic taste in film, and mine has grown quite a lot from just spending a lot of time with him.
So Finn is keeping you on the path to cinephilia.
It’s kind of inevitable for anybody who ends up hanging out with Finn. Your music taste grows and your taste in film grows.
Winona is right in a larger sense, though.
Totally!
Gen Z just doesn’t seem to prioritize moviegoing like generations past. Is it a byproduct of social media-shaped attention spans?
It could be, but I’ve got to give my generation a bit more credit. Just because there isn’t the ritual of going to the theater, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there aren’t people who are invested [in film]. A lot of times, people would collectively go to theaters because there wasn’t much else to do, and that’s why people ended up seeing a lot of what was coming out. But most of the stuff that was in theaters then were the big blockbusters, and now a lot more films have an opportunity to be made and released. So I think that my generation is more keen on diving a little bit deeper into stuff. I think that they’re a lot more critical of the information and the entertainment that they obtain and absorb. It’s made for a more nuanced approach to how people watch movies, and I think it’s going to continue on an upward scale. People in my generation are going to be really excited about jumping in, and while it may not be as universal, I think the people that are invested are incredibly invested. They have so much research at their disposal, and they can watch every movie that’s ever been made if they want to.
But I do notice that the fun ritual experience of seeing stuff in the theater is fading. There’s a few pockets here and there that are trying to keep it alive, and I would love to see people going to theaters more. I’ve been trying to do so myself, but Gen Z is a pretty creatively forward bunch. The industry is going to be just fine in their hands.
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LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy is now streaming on Disney+.
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