Gaten Matarazzo used to experience a lot of anxiety when he thought about death, which he attributed to his religious upbringing.
The Stranger Things actor said that “at the moment” he was not actively spiritual and that’s why he thinks he’s “not afraid actively of death,” but that was very different when he was younger.
The 22-year-old star was baptized Catholic by his Italian family, but grew up attending a Methodist church in a small town.
“When I used to be a very spiritual person, a very religious person, it was a constant [fear of death],” he said on Thursday’s episode of the Mythical Kitchen podcast.
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He valued going to church every Sunday because he made a lot friends, but as he got older he started “to ask himself these existential questions.”
“I know people that have beautiful, wonderful relationships with their religion, and I applaud that and I wish I did. It just scared the s*** out of me,” he said. “The stories that Protestant kids hear, is ‘you better believe this or things are gonna happen,’ and that was the original source of my first panic attacks.”
The LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy starexplained that he was only 10 when he learned about “the concept of an eternity of hell,” which caused him the most fear.
“When you’re 10, you’re like, ‘oh my god, I just found out what death was, and you’re telling me that this is an option?’ Not only an option, but probably the most prevalent option,” he added.
Newsweek contacted Matarazzo’s representatives by email on Friday for comment.
Matarazzo is best known for his role in Netflix’s Stranger Things sci-fi series, playing teen Dustin Henderson. The series was one of Netflix’s most watched shows ever and was even one of the titles that helped reverse a subscriber deadline for the streaming giant in 2022, per The Guardian.
While he rose to fame in Stranger Things, Matarazzo actually began his showbusiness career on Broadway.
The talented singer starred on stage as Benjamin in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and then as Gavroche in Les Misérables.
Matarazzo grew up in New Jersey and been outspoken about having cleidocranial dysostosis.
He was born with the rare genetic condition that mostly “affects teeth and bones, such as the skull, face, spine, collarbones and legs. The bones in people with CCD might be formed differently or might be more fragile than normal, and certain bones such as collarbones may be absent,” according to John Hopkins Medicine.
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