Man: [Off-screen] AB mark.

Younger Gaten Matarazzo: Ow.

Gaten Matarazzo: Yeah, sure.

Younger Gaten Matarazzo: Crushed my nose right there.

Man: [Off-screen] That’s a classic.

Gaten Matarazzo: That’s rough. 

Younger Gaten Matarazzo: I love … I love doing that. 

Gaten Matarazzo: Do I look exactly the same? Because I think I look exactly the same. 

Younger Gaten Matarazzo: Well, I had met Caleb who plays Lucas, um, like a while ago because we had known each other because when we were working in New York, we would see each other a lot at the playground, and we would see each other in, like, the hotel lobby, and we would hang out sometimes. 

Gaten Matarazzo: That’s true.

Younger Gaten Matarazzo: And so I already knew Caleb but I met Finn at the audition, and then we became friends right then, and then I met Noah here.

Gaten Matarazzo: I remember …

Younger Gaten Matarazzo: I met Millie here as well. And like, we all just had a special bond. 

Gaten Matarazzo: I remember that I rehearsed this so … so many times. We got the questions well beforehand and I was like reading this with my mom over and over and over again. I was so, so nervous, as you can probably tell. It’s ridiculous. 

[CLIP] Dustin Henderson: Sometimes your total obliviousness just blows my mind. 

Younger Gaten Matarazzo: It was great. It was, like, this new feeling, but I was, like, “I’m going to be on a TV show.” It just hit me there. I got to see the set, which was amazing. I got to see this basement, which is, like, it’s awesome. It was all getting started. It was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m going to get to use this. I’m going to get to ride this bike.”

Gaten Matarazzo: [laughing] “I’m going to get to ride this bike.”

[CLIP] Dustin Henderson: Son of a bitch. 

Gaten Matarazzo: He said it best. I think … I think sometimes I still come to set and say, “Wow, I’m making a TV show.” And I still feel like that little 13-year-old boy who doesn’t know how to string a sentence together. That hasn’t changed. 

Younger Gaten Matarazzo: It’s got every element you can think of. It’s got all … so many genres that it’s got … They all just morph together perfectly. It’s got like romance. It’s got mystery, suspense, horror. It’s … it’s got comedy. It’s got all those things mixed into one and they all work so perfectly together. It’s like different ingredients go in to make the perfect smoothie. That smoothie is the show.

Gaten Matarazzo: Never had a smoothie in my life. No idea why I would make a smoothie analogy. I don’t drink smoothies. I don’t know why that was the concoction of things that I came up with. What I will very much agree with 13-year-old Gaten on is that we blend genres really, really well. And always, uh … always have. And I think 13-year-old me, his mind would just be blown with how big this smoothie has gotten.

[Lucas, Will, Dustin, and Mike cheering] 

Gaten Matarazzo: Nothing gives me more anxiety than watching 12-year-old me speak words. I’ve always been overwhelmingly grateful for this show. It’s been the greatest gift that anybody could possibly ask for. Tudum!