Linda Hamilton, best known for her iconic role as Sarah Connor in the “Terminator” franchise, revealed she was on the verge of retiring from acting before the Duffer Brothers cast her in “Stranger Things.”
“I was thinking very much of retirement around that time ’cause my hip,” the actress told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published Saturday. “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 going to be fit for work every day. I gotta stop.’”
Hamilton admitted “Stranger Things” was not even on her radar before the show’s creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, approached her about the role of Dr. Kay. She said that it “doesn’t happen often enough” but that they contacted her agent and asked if she’d be interested.
“Cut to — ‘Stranger Things’ calls him three months later,” she continued. “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.”
The Duffer brothers have talked about their love of “The Terminator” and the inspiration it brought to the fifth and final season of the hit Netflix show. However, Hamilton told the outlet that they did not discuss the influences with her directly.
“They were pretty much wearing some version of a James Cameron film T-shirt every day. I don’t think they were even doing it for me,” she said. “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.”
Hamilton plays the mysterious Dr. Kay, a fearsome government scientist working with the military to hunt down Eleven. While she initially had concerns about her hip issues, the actress dedicated a “whole calendar year” to training saying she tried 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,” Hamilton said. “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!”
With inspiration drawn from “The Terminator,” it might seem obvious that Dr. Kay would have qualities similar to Sarah Connor, but Hamilton said the mysterious scientist was very different from any character she’d played before — a deliberate choice.
“I like to play all kinds of women,” she said. “I don’t want to 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. 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.”
“Stranger Things” Season 5, Volume 1 is now playing on Netflix.
