Yes, That’s Linda Hamilton in the ‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 Trailer: Where Has She Been?

Linda Hamilton, 69, became a film icon with her turns as Sarah Connor in The Terminator films. After a while out of the spotlight, she’s back, in the new Stranger Things season 5 trailer; she will appear in the fifth and final season of the show as Dr. Kay, a new character introduced for the show’s closing chapter.

While Hamilton has been back in the public eye recently, she significantly slowed her career down for much of the 2000s, often going a few years between films and appearing in just a few small TV roles. So, where has Hamilton been?

Why did Linda Hamilton disappear from Hollywood?

Hamilton became one of the most iconic heroines in film history for her roles as Sarah Connor  in the Terminator franchise, beginning in 1984. But it was her role as a muscled, gun-slinging dynamo willing to do anything to save her son and the world in 1991’s T2 that made her a superstar. Hamilton followed it up with a handful of bigger projects, including the 1997 volcano thriller Dante’s Peak.

But off-screen, things were more complicated. She suffered postpartum depression after the 1993 birth of her second daughter, with director James Cameron. “My answer to being that ‘overnight success’ was to go and get pregnant with Jim Cameron and completely disappear. What timing!” she told the New York Times in 2019. She said of their marriage, which ended in 1999, “That relationship was a mystery to all of us — even Jim and myself — because we are terribly mismatched.”

Though Hamilton played a few memorable roles in the 2000s, including a recurring turn on 2010s sitcom Chuck, she largely kept a lower profile for most of the 2010s. Tim Miller, who directed 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate, which brought Hamilton back to the big screen, told the New York Times that Hamilton “doesn’t care about any of the trappings of stardom — in fact, she doesn’t seem to want it at all. One of the hardest things for her with coming back to this character was knowing she’d have to step into the spotlight again.”

What is Linda Hamilton doing now?

While Stranger Things is her biggest project at the moment, Hamilton has not slowed down elsewhere. She also stars in the 2025 sci-fi action film Osiris, playing a Russian survivor trapped aboard an alien ship for decades who helps a Special Forces team battle their way out. On television, she continued to recur as General McCallister in the Syfy comedy Resident Alien until its 2025 cancellation.

A longtime fan of Stranger Things, Hamilton admitted that acting in it has changed how she experiences it and even confessed she probably won’t watch the final season because she’s in it. In a 2024 interview with Us Weekly, Hamilton said, “I’ve watched every season with relish. I just love it. So it’s kind of, like, imposter syndrome where I don’t [feel that I] fit in there. That’s a whole world set in the ’80s.”

Everett Collection

While her career has remained successful, her personal life has had its ups and downs. In 2025, Hamilton opened up about her long struggle with mental health, explaining that she wrestled with depression and bipolar disorder for much of her early career. After more than 20 years of therapy, she says she has now found balance, focusing on family, close friends and her dogs. She has also spoken about the physical toll of challenging action roles, noting that hip pain led her to consider retirement before the Stranger Things offer arrived.

Kerry Brown/Paramount/Everett Collection

Hamilton has also been clear about what she will not return to. In early 2024, she confirmed she was finished with the Terminator franchise, saying the story had already been told. She has known personal loss as well. In 2020, her identical twin sister, Leslie Hamilton Freas, passed away at age 63. Leslie had even appeared as Linda’s double in a few Terminator 2 scenes.

Hamilton seems to be doing well, focusing on her career and mental health and we hope to see even more from her in the future.

The first four episodes of Stranger Things season 5 arrive on November 26, three more on December 25 and the grand finale on December 31, 2025.

Linda Hamilton Almost Retired Before She Landed One Big Role

The 'Terminator' star also shared what kind of genre she hopes to break into next.

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