How old the Stranger Things Season 5 cast really are compared to their characters
The young cast of Stranger Things has grown up before the eyes of millions of fans, but as Season Five continues to be released, it is pretty clear that the characters are not ageing at the same pace.
The latest series, being released on Netflix in three parts, throws the gang back into the fight as Hawkins becomes the centre of Vecna's deadly plan and Eleven is hunted by the military.
But with three years passing between the last season and the current one, many of our favourite high school characters are now being played by people who are old enough to buy them a beer.
When Stranger Things first came out nine years ago, the main cast were still promising young child actors. Now, they are all well into adulthood, and many have promising careers ahead of them.
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With the Dungeons and Dragons-loving squad reaching the age of 16 as Season Five unfolds, canonically only four years after the show started, some of their actors are as much as eight years older than their on-screen counterparts.
Millie Bobby Brown
Eleven is facing difficulty at school and outside of it in this season, but her actor, Millie Bobby Brown, is now 21, though she was 20 at the time of filming.
This is despite being just 12 when she was cast in the role of fellow 12-year-old Eleven, with their age gap widening steadily as each new series was released.
Now officially called Millie Bonnie Bongiovi following her wedding, she has already appeared in several productions in the nine years since Stranger Things first came out, including the films Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Enola Holmes.
Finn Wolfhard
Like the other kids, Mike Wheeler is also 16 when the new season starts. But after nine years of filming, actor Mike Wolfhard is now a 22-year-old.
The young star has scored a number of gigs off the back of his central role on Stranger Things, including in the film adaptation of Stephen King's It (2017).
Wolfhard also released his first directorial feature earlier this year, the comedy horror film Hell of a Summer, which was filmed shortly before Season Five.
Gaten Matarazzo
Gaten Matarazzo is one of the oldest actors playing one of the Hawkins kids, now seven years older than high schooler Dustin Henderson.
Aged 23, he is just a few months older than Wolfhard and already had some considerable acting experience under his belt when he joined the cast, having appeared in two Broadway musicals before the age of 13.
Caleb McLaughlin
Caleb McLaughlin is now a surprising eight years older than Lucas Sinclair, with the 24-year-old actor being the oldest member of the original cast.
McLaughlin also saw his breakthrough on Broadway, playing young Simba in The Lion King before landing his part on Stranger Things.
In 2020, he made his feature film debut starring alongside Idris Elba in Concrete Cowboy and has done another four movies in the time since, including 2023's The Book of Clarence.
Noah Shnapp
Will Byers' actor, Noah Schnapp, is one of the youngest members of the Hawkins crew; like Brown, he is just 21 with a five-year character age gap.
His acting career began when he was just 11, when he landed the voice role of Charlie Brown in 2015's The Peanuts Movie. The very same year, he played the son of an intelligence agent in Spielberg's Bridge of Spies.
Since playing Will on the show, Schnapp has launched his own YouTube channel, with 4.5 million subscribers.
Sadie Sink
The actor playing 16-year-old Max Mayfield, who joined the show in its second season, is now 23-years-old.
Sadie Sink's character has not had the best of times on the show, but following her breakthrough on Stranger Things, the actor has landed some serious roles and major acclaim.
This included starring in Darren Aronofsky's Oscar-winning The Whale in 2022, where she worked alongside Brendan Fraser, who plays an extremely overweight man trying to reconnect with his daughter.
Topics: Stranger Things, Netflix, Millie Bobby Brown
William Morgan