![‘Stranger Things 5’ Director Shawn Levy Reveals the Unsung Heroes of Will’s Big Coming Out Scene [Exclusive]](https://i3.wp.com/static0.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/shawn-levy.jpg?w=1200&h=675&fit=crop&w=1920&resize=1920,960&ssl=1 "‘Stranger Things 5’ Director Shawn Levy Reveals the Unsung Heroes of Will’s Big Coming Out Scene [Exclusive]")
This interview contains spoilers for Stranger Things 5, Volume 2.As Stranger Things enters its final stretch, director and executive producer Shawn Levy remains one of the creative minds most closely associated with the show’s cinematic identity. Across multiple seasons, Levy has directed some of Stranger Things’ most emotionally complex episodes, balancing large-scale spectacle with intimate, character-driven moments that define the series.
In a recent conversation with Collider’s Steve Weintraub ahead of Stranger Things 5 Volume 2, Levy spoke about wrapping production on his upcoming Star Wars film, the possibility of a future 4K box set for Stranger Things, when the Duffer Brothers first revealed the full mythology of the Upside Down, the challenge of directing Episode 6’s pivotal Nancy and Jonathan scene, the importance of Will’s coming out scene in Episode 7, and how music choices continue to shape the show’s cultural impact.
Wrapping Production on ‘Star Wars: Starfighter’
Levy’s Star Wars film will release May 28, 2027.
COLLIDER: Before we jump into Stranger Things I was going to ask you, where are you in the shooting schedule of Star Wars?
SHAWN LEVY: I mean, I don’t know when your piece is running, Steve. So I mean, I’m going to answer you honestly, but it’s not running like tomorrow. Right?
No, it runs afterthe 25th.
LEVY: Okay. By the time people read this article, we will have wrapped, and you will see tomorrow at around this time, you will see an end of production post from me. So we actually are wrapping this movie tomorrow.
That’s just so crazy. So jumping into Stranger Things, have you and the Duffers discussed doing, or even with Netflix, doing a 4k ultimate box set of the whole series? Is that something that’s in the cards?
LEVY: Uh, maybe in the cards, but it’s not something that’s in discussions. I do know that we have taken great care, as you know, to craft this show like a movie. And if there was a memo about how TV is supposed to be done, we didn’t read it and we never intend to. So anything that can sort of combine the long arc of this storytelling, which is very much how the Duffers and all of us have approached it, would get my and their full support.
When the Duffers Explained the Upside Down Mythology
“They literally drew a diagram to help us understand the concept.”
When did the Duffers first tell you the full story behind the Upside Down and how it’s a wormhole leaving from our dimension to the abyss?
LEVY: I want to say it was about a year before we started shooting. So I can’t even remember anymore. I think whatever year we started shooting, I want to say it was early in 2024. Maybe, um, a year before that, the Duffers pitched the entire final season to a small group of us. And that was my first thorough, comprehensible explanation of our mythology. And what I remember most about it, other than the fact that it ended very emotionally, for reasons you’ll understand when you watch the finale episode, is that the Duffers drew a drawing. They literally drew a diagram to help us understand the concept. And a year or more later, there I am directing that scene in the Squawk where Dustin draws the same diagram that the Duffers had drawn to explain the concepts to us. So I love the fact that they understand the usefulness of elemental visual aids to explain big ideas.
The Duffers always knew where the story stopped.
Directing Episode 6’s Melting Room “Un-Proposal”
It took many months of prep to pull off one scene in particular.
One of the big scenes of the final season is Episode 6. It’s your episode where Nancy and Jonathan are having this big heart-to-heart where he un-proposes to her. And one of the really great things about that scene is there’s so much going on between them, but you’re also thinking they’re going to die because of the situation they’re in. You do such a great job directing that scene because the whole scene is going on, but then all of a sudden it’s just them talking with music and everything else sort of fades away. Can you sort of talk about filming that scene and making the audience feel like they’re going to die while also having this huge heart-to-heart?
LEVY: Yeah, I mean, we could and probably should do at some point, a whole 10, 15 minutes about that scene. The melting room un-proposal scene, as we always refer to it, is absolutely one of the most complicated sequences I’ve ever directed, including in all my movies. When I heard about it, I knew it was going to be incredibly hard to figure out and pull off. When I read the outline, I literally remember saying, “Oh my God, whatever poor son of a bitch has to direct that scene is in for a major headache,” because it requires engineering, major special effects, ingenuity and research. But then it also needs to take the premise of the scene, which is a potentially lethal melting room and slowly, subtly, recede the premise to the background so that the emotional stakes of the scene become foreground. And I’ll just say that it was many, many, many months of prepping it.
I was storyboarding the melting room scene while I was editing Deadpool and Wolverine way early because I knew it would be really hard. And I’ll just say I’m grateful that, as complex as it was, Charlie [Heaton] and Natalia [Dyer] came wrapped and ready to deliver. And so the performances carried the scene. And I was able at a certain point to leave all of that probably six to eight months of prep, leave it behind and just tell the story of this beautiful relationship and this resolution that Nancy and Jonathan finally have.
Yeah, the scene’s fantastic. How long did it actually take you to film that scene on set?
LEVY: I believe it was three days in the melting room and I believe that scene might be, as far as sheer page count, the longest dialogue scene. Certainly the longest two-hander dialogue scene we’ve had in Stranger Things history. It was very long and yet I think between the visuals and the performances it sustains at a runtime that very few of our two-hander scenes have ever run.
The Importance of Will’s Episode 7 Scene
Levy views the scene as the “crucible” of Stranger Things‘ ethos.
That scene is also only able to be done when you’re that invested in the two of them. It’s a Season 5 type scene and anyway, I give you props. It’s a great scene. One of the other scenes, and I don’t know if you directed it or if the Duffers directed it because it’s Episode 7. One of the most important scenes of the series doesn’t involve any action. It’s Will telling everyone that he doesn’t like girls and it is such an important scene on so many levels because a, it’s him coming out to his friends, but b, it’s a scene where a character is coming out essentially to the world due to the popularity of this show and how many millions upon millions of people are gonna watch this scene and possibly have their lives impacted because they’ve come to love Will. It might be the first person that they are sort of friends with, if you will. Talk a little bit about who actually directed this scene and the importance of getting this scene 100% right.
LEVY: I share everything you just said. I think it is an incredibly important scene and I think that it feels really gratifying to put a scene like this in the world knowing it will connect with millions of people around the world. It was a scene that the Duffers nailed on the page early. It was always a home run piece of writing, and I talked about and rehearsed a bit with Noah [Schnapp] in advance of him shooting it because he was prepping and sweating that scene for months advanced because it was always so clearly important and also so clearly authentic and important to him for obvious reasons. And so we worked a bit on the material, but the Duffers directed that scene and Noah delivers, but I think the unsung heroes of that scene, which is magnificent, are all of the other characters.
When I first watched the cut of that scene, I wasn’t surprised that Noah knocked me out, but I was surprised by how moved I was by Charlie and Sadie [Sink] and Maya [Hawke] and all of the listeners and the love and empathy that they convey in their faces as the characters listened but also as the actors listened to their friend Noah who we’ve all known since he was 11-years-old. So, to me, that scene was sort of a perfect crucible of this Stranger Things ethos, which is, yeah, it’s a job, yes, it’s a TV series, but these connections and these feelings and themes — they’re real, and they’re part of our real lives and that ends up on screen too.
Choosing Music and Its Cultural Impact
“The song choices come about in different ways.”
This is gonna be my last question because I’m already out of time. How involved were you in picking the songs in your episodes? Talk a little bit about how you guys discussed what songs, because you know the Kate Bush song exploded and whatever songs get put on this show are gonna turn into huge things because so much of the audience hasn’t actually heard the songs because they’re younger.
LEVY: I will say this: sometimes there’s certain songs and I don’t want to give any away because I believe some of them are yet to be seen by anyone. Certain songs get written into the script. Sometimes the brothers like by the way of “Running Up That Hill” in Season 4. The brothers and the writers’ room come up with a song idea early, and it gets baked into the writing. Other times it’s trial and error in post-production and with the fantastic input of our music supervisor, Nora Felder. It’s changed over the years because in Season 1 and Season 2 we just put things in because we liked them, but by Season 3 and beyond, we would make those selections knowing the impact that us choosing a song could have on that song.
So it’s not that it changed our process, but it was a different awareness of how that song could then travel and spread culturally. So there’s a lot of great needle drops in Season 5, and it’s just thrilling to be a part of it. Certainly, the end of Episode 6. I never expected to direct Episode 6. My calendar sort of mandated it, and so, there I suddenly am directing another episode ending in the red void with Sadie, and suddenly it became clear to us that this was, in some ways, an echo of “Dear Billy,” and so using a reprise of a new orchestration of Kate Bush and that scene for instance felt organic to that sequence because it’s so obviously connected back to the “Dear Billy” episode in Season 4. The song choices come about in different ways.
Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 2 is now streaming on Netflix.
- Release Date
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2016 – 2025-00-00
- Network
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Netflix
- Directors
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Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer, Andrew Stanton, Frank Darabont, Nimród Antal, Uta Briesewitz
- Writers
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Kate Trefry, Jessie Nickson-Lopez, Jessica Mecklenburg, Alison Tatlock
