“Stranger Things” Hair Designer Sarah Hindsgaul on Wigs, Grit, and Grounding Season 5’s Fantasy

Almost ten years of the Stranger Things cultural phenomenon have drawn to a close, with a final, action-driven season that saw the Hawkins crew take on Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) and the US military in one last, epic, desperate final battle. Despite the final nod to the game, the show’s young heroes have grown up considerably from the Dungeons & Dragons-loving tweens audiences first met nigh on a decade ago, while Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Steve (Joe Keery) have shed all the trappings of adolescence. The final season sees Will’s (Noah Schnapp) powers revealed and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) make the ultimate sacrifice, and it took almost a year of shooting to get there. For hair designer Sarah Hindsgaul, who’s been with Stranger Things since the very beginning, making the looks for Season 5 work entailed a multi-tiered department and plenty of wigs.

When the season begins, Hawkins is under lockdown. El, Hopper (David Harbour), and the rest of the crew are either on the run or dealing with the depredations of the military. Hair-wise, what started out neat and nostalgic back in Season 1 is now grounded by a very different reality. Hindsgaul’s department supported the storytelling with a no-nonsense look for El and a shift in hairstyles for many of the other 30-plus main characters, using wigs that could withstand multiple shooting conditions as needed. We spoke with Hindsgaul about juxtaposing the show’s signature 1980s looks with a new 1950s setting, helping characters come into their own, and keeping the show’s hair authentic.

How did you use wigs to make shooting work?

I think there’s a different story and reasoning behind each one of the wigs. Take Max [for example]—we were putting her through so much this year, and her hair is so wild, and there’s a lot of stuff to tame it down. That would cause humongous wear and tear on anybody’s hair, so that had to be a wig. To match that completely to her braids, we had to build that too, so it had the exact same texture, color, and length. To sell it, we used some of Sadie’s own hair at the very front and matched it to what her hair would do in the desert or with a lot of humidity in the air. We were shooting in a lot of different climates. We were shooting all of the episodes intertwined. That’s another reason we were using a wig—some days, we might start with a hospital scene, then go to the cave. On Stranger Things, what makes it a little bit different is that we have such a big cast and so much footage to shoot that we want to be able to turn from one look to another. We just have to be ready for all the looks all of the time, and wigs make that a lot more doable.

What was your approach to Henry’s 1950s world?

The first thing we did was go all-in on wigs. A 1950s hairstyle takes many hours to get right. The 1950s are the polar opposite of our 1980s look. Combining those two, when you go down that hallway, is very jarring. It almost gives you this eerie feeling, where nothing is moving. I tried to really play with that. Henry Creel, his hair never moves. It’s very solid. For me, it seems dead. It gives you a sense of strangeness when you have movement and non-movement next to each other. Max and Holly, what is going on? Is Holly in a fairy tale? There’s something so clean about her at all times. Then Max has lived in this cave forever, and we really gritted her up.

Nancy’s look was a standout. How did that come about?

We’ve always styled her a lot. Nancy has always had an insecurity about what other people think of her and how she represents herself in the world. She wants to be taken seriously. Now she’s more okay with being who she is. So I wanted something a little more relaxed. At the end of the day, even though she’s Karen Wheeler’s daughter, I think she’s a no-nonsense kind of woman. She’s become that. There’s an independence that we see in her character, and that needed to reflect in the hair.

And how did you approach Steve, who started off as a hair-first kind of guy but has also changed so much?

It’s a little bit the same. They’re a little bit older. I wanted the whole season to have a looser, grittier feel. The way we were shooting this season was very different. We went right into the action. They’ve been in lockdown, and I think the vanity has gone out of these people, even Steve. Normally, I do these very soft blow-drys on him, and it’s like a cloud with piece-y ends. This year, we went in and put wax into his wet hair so it would have a more gritty feel, and it looks a little bit wet. It’s less pretty.

For the actors who aren’t in wigs, is it complicated to keep things consistent over almost an entire year of shooting?

I’ve done these haircuts so many times, and my team can do these haircuts now, too. We needed everyone on the team to be able to do every single actor, in case you have to go to the second unit. It’s a very well-oiled machine, at this point, and the cast know exactly what they need for their parts, so they’re really helpful with everything. My main goal with doing hair is to get the best performance from the actor, to help them find it within themself, and I think it helps a lot when they look in the mirror and feel 100% like their character. That’s obviously very different now, when we’ve been with people for ten years. They know these characters so well.

Speaking of familiarity, how did you handle Will’s character?

For Will this year, that was a very important change that happened with his hair. I was scared of losing the Will that we know. You don’t want to see me having done something that takes you out of the story. We started talking about it months before, how can we get that Will feel in? The day we were testing, Noah did his own texture. I found that doing his own hair made him connect to it, and he knew exactly what he needed. That’s the thing about doing the hair for them this year: they know exactly where their character is going. It’s a dialogue. I have some ideas, but of course, they know their characters better than anybody.

What’s the story behind Dustin’s longer locks?

That was very fun. We were doing the Eddie cut on him. It’s his homage to his friend. He’s showing the world that Eddie’s not completely gone yet. I was really impressed with how he carried that and brought that character to life. That was not a wig. I matched the extensions to his curl pattern and built them in. I think it looked great. For me, hair is only good if it looks realistic and moves at the same time. My goal is always to achieve that. The grit, flaws, something out of place. In the morning, my team did such a beautiful job, and sometimes I go and mess it up a little bit. I’m like, I’m so sorry, but you’re too good, it’s too perfect. I grew up in Copenhagen, I grew up with Dogme [95 filmmaking], and I always need a little bit of that in there.

That suits the show. It feels like real memories of that era.

It’s an interesting combo, that we’re doing something so supernatural, it’s fantasy on all levels, but also, especially when you’re doing fantasy, you need to ground it. Otherwise, it feels plasticky.

Stranger Things season 5 is streaming in its entirety on Netflix.

Featured image: STRANGER THINGS: SEASON 5. (L to R) Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson, and Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler in Stranger Things: Season 5. Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2025