Source: Entertainment Weekly

There was a point recently when Linda Hamilton actively considered retirement.

The Terminator and Dante’s Peak star, 69, was suffering a bad hip around 2023 and wasn’t convinced she could perform to the best of her ability. However, it didn’t take long before she and her agent put those thoughts to rest. Then, just a few months later, Stranger Things came calling.

Hamilton appears in the fifth and final season of the Netflix streaming juggernaut as Dr. Kay, a government scientist continuing the work of the late “Papa”/Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine). Even after the first four episodes, which dropped this past Wednesday night, there are plenty of questions surrounding her character.

Hamilton recently sat down with Entertainment Weekly over Zoom to discuss playing Dr. Kay, filming one of her “biggest parts” while also shooting Stranger Things and Resident Alien, and how she seems to be working now more than ever.

It’s really hard to find filmmakers in their 30s and 40s who weren’t inspired or influenced by The Terminator in some way. And I’m not just talking about the Duffers.

I do find that people just keep coming to me now. “Thank you for my childhood.” I’m like, ‘Really, dude? Don’t give your childhood to me.’ [Laughs] Like when I was in Mexico City this year, that’s what everyone said: “Thank you for my childhood.” It’s a little overwhelming. I don’t really wanna wear that mantle, but it’s great. I understand more than most that it was an accident of timing. Not that I didn’t do my job and that I don’t care about the work, but the world has to be ready. One little slipup…

I think if I cut my hair off like Jim [Cameron] wanted me to do — we all know that old trope of you don’t wanna give your opponent anything to grab — I think my entire career might have rested on this. I think the fact that we kept [Sarah Connor, the Terminator heroine] feminine allowed her to grow as an icon. I mean, I hate that word, too, but, you know, the fact that she was strong and feminine still.

Matt and Ross Duffer were sharing how they were inspired by The Terminator for Stranger Things season 5. Were they upfront with you about that? Did you talk about those influences in your initial conversations?

We did not, but they were pretty much wearing some version of a James Cameron film T-shirt every day. [Laughs] I don’t think they were even doing it for me. They just wear the inspiration. So we didn’t really talk about the origins so much, and actually didn’t really talk about the character that much. Those guys are busy. So that’s a little bit fun and dangerous — to not know the endgame. They played that very close to their chests, but it was so well written that there wasn’t any question about how should I play this or that. And then I added my own magic and off I went.

I’ve picked up bits and pieces from sound-bites at the red-carpet premiere. Is it fair to say you weren’t actively pursuing Stranger Things? This was more them coming to you saying, “Is Linda available”?

Yeah. That doesn’t happen often enough. They came to my agent. I was thinking very much of retirement around that time ’cause my hip. I was limping. Unless you want a character that’s limping… I just said, “I can’t do my best work or be sure that I’m gonna be fit for work every day. I gotta stop.” And cut to — Stranger Things calls him three months later. There’s been no further discussion about retirement. We’ve left it on the table. They said, “Is Linda Hamilton available from June to June?” And he went, “Yes!” — without even asking, because that’s how excited we were and he was.

You mentioned you were having issues with your hip and, obviously, your character, Dr. Kay, does have some action scenes. Were you thinking about how you would pull that off? Stranger Things 5 filmed for a full calendar year.

A whole calendar year of trying to stay ahead of the curve in terms of when they might need me and what the demands were going to be physically. We call it PT, but really I went to the gym three times a week to stay mobile and ready. It was also very necessary. I’m just older. I’m thinking those might be my last stunt rehearsals — I think I might be done with that. I could actually say I’m done with that and see what happens. But I worked really hard just to stay fit and ready and able. And now, what a relief that I got through it. And she didn’t limp, the character!

COURTESY OF NETFLIX
Even after those first four episodes, I still have so many questions about this character. What were the initial details that you really clung to in the script in order to form the character of Dr. Kay?

They actually presented the character to me in a rather short form. She’s a military scientist carrying on Papa’s work. And that was pretty much it. Obviously, she’s got her own itinerary, and there are some driving forces that we don’t see right away. She has her mysteries, which is great.

How would you define your unique flavor of Dr. Kay? Because you have played these military or military-adjacent roles in the past.

I made a decision that her passion is for the lab and not for people. That just colors everything so differently. She doesn’t really like contact with people — she just is the science and the vegetation that’s coming out of the Upside Down. You know what I mean? So that’s a very different person from anyone I’ve played before.

One thing Matt and Ross mentioned that really stood out to me was Dr. Kay having an “unhinged” quality. What did that look like for you in practice?

She comes unhinged once or twice. And after you do it twice, you really wanna do it again. [Laughs] It’s great to play a character that actually has some very human reactions. She’s not just military, and she’s got a short fuse. It was fun to just erupt in the moment.

Obviously, seeing you in the context of Stranger Things and hearing the Duffers talk about their Terminator inspirations gives the audience a very clear image of Sarah O’Connor in their minds. When [The Goonies star] Sean Astin joined the show [in season 2], it was also a very similar cultural image. Do you actively want to work against the Sarah Connor type when you’re in a situation like that?

I like to play all kinds of women. I don’t wanna play the same woman over and over and over again. I’m actually quite tired of just being a strong, tough-ass woman. It just gets so old. [Laughs] I did work for years when I was younger and still thinking of building a career to play against that — or to wear dresses! I wore dresses for two years just because I’m feminine as well. I’m not just a tough-ass. I think there are ways that we subtly try to work against it. But then again, I have nothing but gratitude for the fact that I did that part, and I have to live up to it, or live it down. Those are both pretty good options.

When you talk about wanting to play different kinds of women, how much does that job rest on your shoulders — to actively turn down roles that feel too ‘Sarah Connor’? And how much of it is filmmakers coming to you with a varied selection of roles?

There is a limited selection. I like to say yes to work, so I’m always gonna go for something that isn’t Sarah Connor, but I also have an agent who understands that I’m not an action star. I’m an accidental action star who was trained in New York at Lee Strasberg. So he’s always looking for those other things. They’re not gonna just completely monetize one thing, which I could have done. I could have gone and done workout videos, but I just wanna get the next job and play a different woman. I’m very simple.

Earlier this year, you had a movie out called Osiris, which is now streaming on Hulu. You also mentioned on the Stranger Things red carpet that you shot Resident Alien and Stranger Things in the same year. Was 2024 just a wild time for you work-wise?

While I was doing Stranger Things, I also ran off to Toronto and shot one of the biggest parts I’ve played in years and years and years for six weeks — a film. It’s called Trust Me, I’m a Doctor, and it’s a dark comedy, if we could call it that. [My character is] a woman who talks and she really, really talks. So I managed to find the time to go and do that as well, which was really fun because it was so different from anything I’ve played in a long time — you know, a professional woman. I’m running back and forth to Atlanta, then I hop off to Toronto and chop off my hair and dye it blonde, and then before I come back we’re dying it dark. My hair had a really tough year.

How did you do it?

I’ve hardly ever worked back-to-back. I haven’t worked this much since I started to talk about retirement. Now, I’m working all the time. I don’t have an assistant, and I don’t have a manager, and I don’t have a publicist. I really live my life my way. So you do it, and then you look like shit most of the time because you’ve done it all and you’re really tired. [Laughs] It’s a funny world ’cause I’m working more than ever and have absolutely no help. I’ve got children that live nearby and a friend that comes in and stays with the dogs, and I just go do what I love.

I actually love acting more than I ever have. It’s hard being a young actress, single mother, career woman to create the time to do the work, but also to give time to your children. So I find that I can luxuriate and just sit with a script for a day and get so fired up. I really get to sit and learn lines so that I go in off book and ready.

I would love your take on the industry now. You’re talking about wanting to play all different kinds of roles, but even Sigourney Weaver has recently said she’s in conversations with Disney about doing another Alien movie. The business seems to be revisiting that type of genre.

I’ve watched it change a lot, because I arrived in Hollywood in 1979. The repetition I find very uninteresting. It’s like, this is the third remake of a film that I saw when I was young or something. It doesn’t interest me, but there’s still great work, and other little films and smaller things that are being done. I don’t know about Hollywood anymore. I just think the whole studio system will never, ever be strong again.

We have corporate decisions running studios that are merged with other entities. The left hand doesn’t know what the right’s doing. It does not feel at all cohesive or like you’re in a very special community of people breaking boundaries. It’s just gone away. I was an ’80s television actress. It wasn’t that great. We had bad, bad hair, bad clothes, bad scripts, but still I’ve seen enough… The infrastructure no longer exists for us to get back to the Hollywood heyday. I don’t think it exists. I guess they’ll run everything into the ground by repeating, and then just have to start over.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Stream the best of Fiji on VITI+. Anytime. Anywhere.