Stranger Things Season 4 has one pretty massive advantage over previous seasons, and star Gaten Matarazzo says it’s made a positive difference. It’s not unusual for the remaining episodes of a TV series to be written while that season is still in production, but it does become a problem when that show’s writers are also the showrunners and directors.

Stranger Things creators The Duffer Brothers have always planned to have each season of the wildly popular Netflix series written before filming begins, but every year they’ve come up just a little short. It’s why Matt and Ross Duffer usually direct the first two and last two episodes of a season – because in the middle, they’re busy writing the rest of the episodes. But because Stranger Things Season 4 was shut down due to the COVID-19 after just a couple months of filming, the Duffer Brothers had the chance to write the rest of the season during the forced hiatus.

RELATED: All the Scripts for 'Stranger Things 4' Are Done and We Might Be Getting Nine Episodes Again

Collider’s own Steve Weintraub recently spoke with Matarazzo for the new season of his Netflix series Prank Encounters, and he asked the actor what a difference it’s made that they were able to read scripts for the whole season before filming the bulk of Season 4. The beloved Dustin actor pulled back the curtain on what it’s been like to make Stranger Things so far:

“The goal was never to film before the show was finished being written, that’s just how it ended up happening the first three seasons. We have a certain number of episodes, around five or six out of eight or nine is usually what we’ll start filming with once those are written. And the goal is [The Duffer Brothers] will direct and [then] write at home. They’ll be home and that’s when they’ll write and manage their workload that way, and how it’s always worked out is we’re on like episode 4 or 5 and we haven’t seen episode 6 and 7 yet, and we have no idea what’s gonna happen and they haven’t written all of it yet. So the pressure is usually on and when that happens, usually there’s like a 2-3 week hiatus where we’ll go home and take a break and during that 2-3 weeks Matt and Ross are home and they are writing. Like non-stop, panic-writing.”

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Image via Netflix

Matarazzo says that thus far, this “panic-writing” has worked in the show’s favor, and that is certainly evident in the strong ending to Stranger Things Season 3:

“That’s never ideal, but honestly for some reason that spur-of-the-moment, ‘we gotta get this done,’ it seems to me like that’s where a lot of their best work comes in. I don’t know if it’s the pressure, I don’t know if it’s them being up all night caffeinated and they just have really crazy frazzled brains that can write really weirdly.”

But this year, when production was shut down, Matarazzo says the Duffer Brothers decided to finish writing all of Season 4 before they went back into production:

“This year, because of COVID, there’s no excuse for them not to have the [season] written completely. When we went in for our first table read which was February of 2020 we expected to go right into filming and it was gonna be the same situation, they were gonna start with episodes all the way up through 5 and we were probably gonna do the same hiatus, but COVID hit and we only had like six episodes and so they were like, ‘we might as well finish.’”

In terms of how far along Stranger Things Season 4 filming is, Matarazzo said it's hard to say given that their dates have to be flexible due to COVID restrictions:

“There’s very few dates that are reliable. It really is more of a guesstimation on when we’re gonna be filming next, when we’re gonna be wrapping up, when release is gonna be, all that jazz because we still don’t know on day-to-day if we’re gonna be filming next week. I should be filming like next month for a bigger chunk than I’ve had in a bit, but even though it’s coming up in about two weeks from now, I still don’t know an exact date. So because of that, there’s really no way to figure out when we’re gonna be wrapping.”

In other words, it doesn't sound like Season 4 will be wrapping — let alone releasing on Netflix — anytime soon.

But in terms of having all the scripts written now, Matarazzo says it’s made a difference not only to the actors, but to the Duffers who can now just focus on directing the rest of the season:

“I think they’ve been able to relish in directing in their day-to-day. There’s nothing else distracting them other than what we’re gonna do today while we’re directing, and I asked them, ‘Do you guys sleep at night?’ they’re like, ‘Literally we dream about directing this show. We go to sleep and we have dreams that we’re just directing this show,’ it takes up their entire minds when they’re making this. So I think it’s a good thing because now they can take their focus off of what the show is going to be about, and now that they know it, they can focus on how they’re going to deliver. And I think it shows.”

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Image via Netflix

Matt and Ross Duffer traditionally direct the first two and last two episodes of each season, so it'll be fun to see how their direction may or may not have shifted by going into Season 4 with their attention fully focused on the filmmaking instead of half having to worry about finishing the scripts. Their installments are always strong, and it’ll be especially exciting to see how the entire season flows given that the bulk of production was underway with all scripts intact.

Filming is still ongoing and Netflix has not yet announced a release date for Stranger Things Season 4, but this update from Matarazzo makes the wait that much more agonizing.

KEEP READING: 'Stranger Things 4': Why the Pandemic Delay May Result in One of the Show's Best Seasons