Gaten Matarazzo on Life After Stranger Things and His Mind-Blowing Stoner Film Pizza Movie

0:01 -Our next guest is a very talented actor

0:02 you know from his breakout role as Dustin Henderson

0:05 in "Stranger Things," as well as his work on Broadway

0:08 in shows such as "Dear Evan Hansen,"

0:10 "Sweeney Todd" and "Les Miserables."

0:11 He stars in the new comedy "Pizza Movie,"

0:14 which is streaming now on Hulu.

0:16 Let's take a look.

0:17 -These duds?

0:18 -Guess so.

0:20 Want to play Wizard's oath?

0:21 -No we can't.

0:22 We need three people.

0:23 -I could play.

0:24 -No, it would take too long to teach you the rules.

0:30 -Oh, no.

0:36 -Somebody help!

0:39 -Are you ready, kids?

0:41 -Yeah!

0:41 -Here we go.

0:43 Everything's happy everything's nice♪♪ Everything's happy everything's nice♪

0:47 -Why are our hands stinging?

0:49 No one's gonna die today♪

0:50 -Please welcome to the show, Gaten Matarazzo, everybody.

0:55 Cheers and applause]♪♪ -Oh, boy.

1:07 -How are you?

1:08 -I'm doing very well.

1:09 -As clips go, that's one of the weirder ones.

1:13 -I figured I was like, "Is that the clip they're using?

1:14 That's the clip they're using." -Yeah.

1:16 -Um, yeah, I would like to say that in context,

1:18 it makes more sense,

1:20 but I don't think that that would be necessarily true.

1:22 -It's really impressive that you went from "Stranger Things"

1:24 to something weirder.

1:25 -Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:27 -Like people will look back.

1:28 That's like, that was his like very normal stuff.

1:30 -That was the normal stuff for sure.

1:32 -That was the goal.

1:32 -That was the goal.

1:33 -Yeah.

1:34 -Uh, congratulations on "Stranger Things."

1:35 -Thank you.

1:37 -An incredible run.

1:38 -And it does— I think one of the things that everybody sort of enjoyed about

1:44 how it all wrapped up was one, you know,

1:45 obviously the work on screen,

1:47 but it was very special to watch—

1:48 one, you guys grew up together

1:50 and it did seem like there was a real closeness

1:51 to that group of people.

1:53 -Oh yeah.

1:53 For sure.

1:54 And their family.

1:55 I mean, we, like you said, we grew up together.

1:57 We worked on it for a decade

1:59 and that's a long time to do anything.

2:01 But especially during such formative years of our lives,

2:04 it was basically half of our lives up to that point.

2:06 So it was nuts.

2:08 -I, you know, obviously I was on a show for 10 years

2:10 and we were a little bit older when I did it.

2:12 But like that same thing

2:13 where you're just like with a group of people that long.

2:15 And I actually, I feel like,

2:17 I don't know, there's some similarities.

2:18 I saw you and Finn getting interviewed once

2:20 and the way you were doing bits.

2:22 It was like you were kind of talking past the interviewer

2:24 and I'm like, "Oh, my God, this is like watching

2:26 Bill and Fred do an interview."

2:27 -Yes, we felt terrible.

2:28 It was probably like a long,

2:30 like the part of the day

2:31 where we were just probably pretty gassed out,

2:34 like at that point, and we just kept on going.

2:37 -But it was fun to realize like you guys,

2:39 obviously you were delighting each other,

2:42 which is my favorite thing to watch on camera.

2:44 Um, Finn hosted "SNL." You got to show up.

2:46 -Yes, he did!

2:46 -You got to show up.

2:48 -Oh, man.

2:48 He's the best.

2:49 -We were— -Oh, he was great.

2:51 His episode was unreal.

2:52 -And we were saying backstage, uh...

2:54 -He's so funny.

2:54 -Very, very nice to be able to experience "SNL"...

2:57 -Incredible.

2:57 -...as a plus one.

2:58 -Exactly.

3:00 That's the thing, is that you got to see the chaos unfold

3:01 and there's no pressure whatsoever.

3:03 So I got to watch him go through the monologue

3:05 and have the whole week of prep.

3:07 And I was talking to him the whole time and him,

3:09 uh, (bleep) his pants over it.

3:11 And we were like, "All right, I guess I'll show up on Saturday."

3:16 And yeah, it was the best.

3:18 I don't know how you did that for—

3:19 for as long as you did.

3:20 -Barely.

3:21 -Yeah, sure.

3:22 -The answer is barely.

3:22 Another thing— Pressure, I would imagine,

3:25 is, uh, the finale of "Stranger Things"

3:27 and, you know, obviously desperately wanting to nail the landing.

3:30 And you guys— I was actually in theaters.

3:32 -Yes, it was.

3:33 -You wanted to see it in theaters.

3:34 -Very much so.

3:35 It was very special.

3:35 -You also did not— and who could blame you—

3:38 did not want all the extra attention

3:39 of you being you going to see it.

3:41 So you had a plan.

3:42 -A little bit.

3:43 Yeah.

3:43 -What was your plan to avoid detection?

3:45 -So there was a little bit of context leading up to this.

3:48 I was just going to go, I was in Florida visiting my mom,

3:51 she lives there, we were there for Christmas.

3:52 And, uh, I wanted like to be able to go

3:55 and enjoy like festivities where she lived,

3:58 but kind of just not get recognized as much

4:00 so I dressed up as the Grinch.

4:02 -So you went to the movie as the Grinch,

4:04 but you kind of— you, uh—[ Cheers and applause]

4:09 Maybe you didn't— I will, by the way,

4:11 I also, I'm not judging.

4:13 I would have also thought this was a good idea,

4:14 but of course it wasn't a good idea at all.

4:16 -No, it had the adverse effect of like,

4:18 more people came up to me and asked me for pictures

4:20 because I was dressed up like the Grinch.

4:23 -Right.

4:23 -In a public setting.

4:24 -Like if I was in a mall at Christmas

4:26 and a Grinch was walking around,

4:28 I would think you were there to take pictures.

4:30 -Of course.

4:31 It ended up happening.

4:32 But I got to like, I don't know, I got to have more fun.

4:35 I got to do more bits as the Grinch, I think,

4:37 'cause then they could be like, "Man,

4:39 that kid who was the Grinch was a real jerk."

4:41 But I feel like, yeah, I'd be okay with that.

4:45 -You— Uh, so we watched the clip.

4:47 "Pizza Movie." This is a really funny premise.

4:50 Just to explain the clip real quick.

4:51 -Please, please, please.

4:52 -You guys take some—

4:54 You and your friend take some hallucinogenic drugs.

4:55 -Yes.

4:55 -There's six unique stages

4:57 in how you're going to hallucinate.

4:59 -Yes.

4:59 -And the only way to stop the sort of awful sick stage

5:03 is to go down two floors and get a pizza.

5:05 -And grab our pizza.

5:07 Yes.

5:07 It's a— It's a fictional experimental hallucinogenic

5:10 that we find in our dorm.

5:12 -Yeah.

5:12 -And these— these phases are kind of representative

5:15 of classic stoner comedy tropes.

5:18 And they— they increase with absurdity

5:21 over the course of the night.

5:22 And it's kind of,

5:23 it's just the attempt of how insane

5:26 could we make the mundane task of ordering food while you're—

5:29 while you're high be into a movie.

5:32 And I think it's—

5:34 Yeah, I think we succeeded in that for sure.

5:37 -The visual representation of it is great,

5:39 but what was it like when you first read the script?

5:42 Did you see it?

5:43 -Oh, man.

5:44 -Like, could you picture what it was going to be?

5:45 -I could, yes.

5:46 For the most part.

5:47 There was a lot of stuff that they admitted

5:48 they knew that there was going to be tweaks

5:50 and there were going to be edits as to

5:52 how things were going to wrap up

5:53 and where they were going to end up,

5:55 and different ideas like who was going to end up with who

5:58 and what it was going to look like.

6:00 And I was excited about being on board for those conversations.

6:03 And I just remember reading it and thinking

6:06 that I was never going to read anything like it again.

6:08 So if I'm going to pass it up, I have to really consider

6:11 if I would feel very left out of a very fun experience.

6:15 -It doesn't seem like— you can't be like,

6:17 "I'll pass on this one and the next one, like I'll do.

6:19 -Yeah, that was never going to happen again.

6:21 Yeah, the next head exploding sequence

6:23 that lasts three minutes, that happens too in the movie.

6:26 Yea, where if we say curse words, our heads explode.

6:28 And so we have to navigate our way,

6:31 even though I have a very foul mouth, so I find it difficult.

6:34 You should watch it.

6:35 -Yeah.

6:36 Um, you got your start on Broadway.

6:37 How old were you when you were in "Les Mis"?

6:40 -Uh, I started "Les Mis"...

6:42 I started touring with "Les Mis" when I was 10,

6:44 and then they transferred to Broadway when I was 11.

6:46 -That's a— That's a crazy age.

6:49 -A long time ago.

6:50 -What is— What era— What era is this from?

6:54 What are you doing here?

6:55 -The Broadway era.

6:56 -This is at 54 Below.

6:57 -That's fantastic.

6:58 -There was a there was a little cabaret

6:59 that the cast of "Les Mis" did,

7:01 I think probably on a Sunday night.

7:03 Yeah, I think Sunday night.

7:04 -You're an 11 or whatever,

7:05 12 year old cabaret performer.

7:07 -Cabaret performer.

7:08 And this is my friend Joshua Colley.

7:09 He's in "Hadestown" right now.

7:11 You guys should go see him do that.

7:12 -What?

7:13 -He's brilliant.

7:14 -What sort of songs are you guys singing

7:16 on a night like that, do you know?

7:17 -We sang at this night, we sang "All for the Best"

7:20 from "Godspell," which is a classic,

7:22 but the pitch of the show was, uh,

7:24 it was called Beyond the Barricade.

7:25 So it was like songs

7:26 that are not showtune related,

7:28 songs that you would sing in the shower.

7:30 And because we were 11 in the theater,

7:31 the only songs we really knew and grew up on

7:34 were more— it was more musical theater, but of course.

7:37 So we sang some of that.

7:39 You can watch it if you want.

7:40 -Um, also very exciting—

7:42 I'm very excited for animated "Animal Farm," Andy Serkis.

7:45 -A lot of things.

7:46 -A lot of things.

7:47 -Thank you for all these plugs.

7:49 -No, no, of course, but I'm very excited to watch this.

7:51 Andy Serkis directed it and he's fantastic.

7:53 -He's wonderful.

7:55 -And which animal do you voice in this one?

7:56 -I voice Lucky the pig who, yeah.

7:58 Yes, he is a pig, which is actually very fun.

8:02 Yes, indeed.

8:04 It's actually a newer character written in the film

8:07 that is kind of acts as the lens of how to look

8:11 upon "Animal Farm" in the eyes of the screen,

8:14 which has always been hard to do,

8:15 because, of course, in the novel,

8:17 it's eerily told in a non—

8:20 in an unbiased kind of perspective.

8:22 And they thought a really interesting way of introducing

8:24 that would be through the eyes of a young pig who's very,

8:27 very little and seeing everything unfold around him,

8:29 but also in a position of great privilege in—

8:31 I'm sure most people here have read "Animal Farm"

8:34 and it doesn't go well.

8:36 Um, and so they thought

8:39 that that was an interesting idea and perspective

8:41 to, to introduce.

8:42 So I play— I play that young lad.

8:44 -Uh, I'm just so delighted to have you here finally,

8:46 man, I'm a big fan.

8:47 -Yeah, me too.

8:48 -Thank you so much for being here.

8:49 This is Gaten Matarazzo.

8:50 -Thanks, guys.

8:51 "Pizza Movie" streaming on Hulu.

8:53 We'll be right back with Dan Bucatinsky.

8:54 -Oh, thank you.