Linda Hamilton explains how her new role in fifth and final season of Stranger Things has ‘ruined the show for me’

Linda Hamilton says she’s “excited” to head to Hawkins, Indiana to join the cast of Stranger Things for the fifth and final season.

But at the same time, the actress admitted that the opportunity “kind of ruined the show” for her, as the story builds to an inevitable conclusion.

It turns out that not only has the Terminator star been a fan of the sci-fi horror drama series since the beginning, but she also has a policy of not viewing her work once it’s finished and released.

So, in keeping with that rule, Hamilton will not be watching the upcoming final season of the hit Netflix series.

‘I have enjoyed watching every season. “I just love it,” she said We weekly. “So it’s kind of an imposter syndrome where I don’t (feel like I) fit in there. That’s a whole world set in the ’80s.’

Hamilton, now 67, went on to talk about how she always found it difficult to imagine herself in a film or show when she was already involved as a viewer and fan.

“When you really believe in something, you don’t see yourself in it,” she explained during the interview. “So I think in a way it ruined the show for me. I never look at (a project) once I’m in something.”

She continued: ‘It would take me completely out of reality if I saw myself in that. So I’m not going to watch (season 5).”

Exactly what role Hamilton plays in season five has been largely kept secret.

The same can be said about how the storyline plays out in the show’s final episodes.

“I zoomed in with (creators) Ross and Matt Duffer, and they gave me the shape of the character, but not the story. Because they have to be very careful with their story. So I still don’t know how it ends,” the Salisbury, Maryland, resident said.

She confessed, “And it takes a lot of discipline not to know where it’s going. But that’s to protect it from all the people who want to know.’

Although Hamilton is contractually obligated to remain silent about how the series ends, she teased fans by saying the final season is “really good.”

Winona Ryder, 52, and David Harbour, 48, lead the adult cast in the Netflix series Stranger Things due out sometime in 2025

Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown lead the young cast in season one in 2016

Millie Bobby Brown, Noah Schnapp, Finn Wolfhard, Charlie Heaton and Eduardo Franco

Hamilton will forever be known for her leading role as a lady in The Terminator (1984), starring alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Biehn

Hamilton played a more ripped and buff version of Sarah Connor in the successful sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Created by Matt and Ross Duffer – also known as the Duffer Brothers – Stranger Things first premiered on Netflix in July 2016 and quickly became a fan favorite on the streaming platform.

Since then, it has set viewership records for Netflix, including a whopping 64 million households watching the third season within the first month of its release in July 2019, according to Wikipedia.

The cast is led by Winona Ryder, David Harbor and Millie Bobby Brown, along with young stars such as Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer and Charlie Heaton, among many others.

Delayed by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes of 2023, Stranger Things only began filming the show’s highly anticipated final season this past January.

As a result, the series is not expected to hit the streaming platform until sometime in 2025.