Gaten Matarazzo

Gaetano John Matarazzo III, known professionally as Gaten Matarazzo, is an American actor born on September 8, 2002, in New London, Connecticut. He was raised in Little Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, by his parents, Heather and Gaetano John Matarazzo Jr. His grandfather is of Italian descent from Avellino. Matarazzo has an older sister, Sabrina, and a younger brother, Carmen. He was born with cleidocranial dysplasia, a condition affecting bone and teeth development, and has since used his public profile to raise awareness of the condition and fundraise for CCD Smiles, an organization that helps cover the costs of oral surgeries for individuals with CCD. He also has ADHD.

Matarazzo pursued vocal training at Starlight Performing Arts Center in New Jersey. In 2011, he placed third in the vocal solo category at the Starpower Talent Competition Nationals in Uncasville, Connecticut, performing a piece titled "Ben." That same year, he entered professional theater as a replacement cast member in the Broadway musical Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, playing the role of Benjamin during its 2011–12 run. In 2012, he participated in a special "Cast of 2032" professional youth performance of Godspell at Circle in the Square Theatre. He joined the Les Misérables 25th Anniversary Tour in the United States in 2013, playing Gavroche, and reprised that role the following year in the Tony-nominated 2014 Broadway revival of the musical, which ran through 2015.

Matarazzo made his screen acting debut in a 2015 episode of The Blacklist. He subsequently auditioned for the role of Mike Wheeler in the Netflix science-fiction-horror drama series Stranger Things and was instead cast as Dustin Henderson, a character whose background was modified to include cleidocranial dysplasia. The series premiered in July 2016 to critical acclaim, and Matarazzo continued in the role through the show's run from 2016 to 2025. He began hosting the Netflix hidden camera series Prank Encounters in 2019, also serving as an executive producer on the show, which ran through 2021. That same year, he appeared in the Hollywood Bowl production of Into the Woods and provided the voice of Bubba in The Angry Birds Movie 2.

In 2022, Matarazzo returned to Broadway, joining the final cast of Dear Evan Hansen as Jared Kleinman. Later that year, in December 2022, it was announced he would return to Broadway once more as Toby Ragg in Thomas Kail's revival of Sweeney Todd, alongside Josh Groban, Annaleigh Ashford, and Jordan Fisher, extending his Broadway career through 2023. Also in 2022, he co-starred with Angourie Rice in the Paramount+ coming-of-age comedy film Honor Society, released on July 29, 2022, and voiced Boris the Dragon in Cartoon Saloon's animated film adaptation of Ruth Stiles Gannett's My Father's Dragon novel series. In 2025, he voiced the character Lucky in the animated film Animal Farm.

Matarazzo has been active in philanthropic efforts across multiple causes. In February 2020, he participated in a Star Wars musical parody fundraiser, SW: A New(sical) Hope, organized by Andrew Barth Feldman and Adrian Dickson, to raise funding for NEXT for AUTISM. In December 2020, he joined a virtual table reading of Elf in support of the Democratic Party of Georgia's campaign in the 2021 Georgia runoff elections. In April 2021, he took part in a charity Among Us stream on The Tonight Show's Twitch account alongside Jimmy Fallon, Questlove, Tariq Trotter, Captain Kirk Douglas, Noah Schnapp, and others, with proceeds benefiting Feeding America. In December 2021, he participated in the Lost Odyssey: Promised Gold livestream event with Jack Black and other performers, raising funds for Extra Life and the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. During the first week of November 2022, he performed in the musical Parade at New York City Center as part of an effort to make the performing arts accessible at affordable prices. Since 2018, Matarazzo has been in a relationship with actress Elizabeth Yu.