Finn Wolfhard Recalls Having a ‘Panic Attack’ on Stranger Things Season 4 Set

Finn Wolfhard was only 13 when he was thrust into the public eye as Stranger Things premiered, and in the decade since, there’s been a major learning curve.

The now 22-year-old has taken his final bow as Mike Wheeler in the hit Netflix series, which wrapped production on its fifth and final season last December. When he looks back on his time on the show, particularly the first few years when he and his costars were between the ages of 11 and 14 in season 1, Wolfhard recalled trying to “make things easy for people,” which came at the cost of his own well-being sometimes.

“You don’t know how to speak up for yourself. You don’t know how to ask for a break,” he told TIME of his early days on the set.

With the Stranger Things‘ premiere came the weight of public attention for Wolfhard and his fellow child actors — Millie Bobby Brown, Noah Schnapp, Caleb McLaughlin and Gaten Matarazzo. “It was incredible and subconsciously terrifying to be 13 and, all of the sudden, everyone knows who you are,” he recalled.

“I was having normal first-relationship struggles and juggling COVID and the show,” he told the outlet. “Halfway through a scene, I started hyperventilating.”

It didn’t help that “a lot of the extras are fans,” so it felt “kind of like a fishbowl” in that moment. “It culminated in sort of a panic attack,” Wolfhard said.

McLaughlin, now 24, and Gaten Matarazzo, 23, pulled him aside and reassured him that they were feeling the same pressure.

Related Stories

Finn Wolfhard Responds to Fans’ Reactions Over His Buzz Cut Transformation: ‘Didn’t Expect for People to Care’

Finn Wolfhard, 22, Reveals Why He Still Lives with His Parents After ‘Stranger Things’ Success (Exclusive)

Wolfhard previously told PEOPLE that, if he could go back in time to the first season premiere of the show, he would “directly put myself into therapy.”

“It was so crazy and overnight, that there was not really any time to think about that,” he said.

Even if he’d been in therapy at the time, the actor said he “would end up probably making a mistake in a different way, anyways. I think childhood, and life in general, is about trial and error.”

He’s also opened up recently about his choice to stay single right now, as the premiere of the final season of Stranger Things approaches and he’s at a turning point in his career.

“The rate that I’m traveling all the time and working and stuff, I just feel like it’s not the time to do that,” he told Variety.

Wolfhard said he’s “doing the most work kind of in my life” right now, so he doesn’t “really want to put” his focus on dating.

“Maybe it’s been subconsciously — what’s the word? — deliberate? — to not have a committed partner,” he shared.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.