Noah Schnapp confirms his character’s sexuality in Stranger Things

After months of speculation (or years if you’ve been paying attention), Will Byers’ (Noah Schnapp) sexuality has finally been confirmed. In an exclusive interview for Variety, actor Noah Schnapp cleared the air regarding the emotional journey that his character had in the latest season of Stranger Things.

“It’s pretty clear this season that Will has feelings for Mike.” The actor said. “They’ve been intentionally pulling that out over the past few seasons. Even in Season 1, they hinted at that and slowly, slowly grew that storyline. I think for Season 4, it was just me playing this character who loves his best friend but struggles with knowing if he’ll be accepted or not, and feeling like a mistake and like he doesn’t belong. 

“Will has always felt like that. All his friends, they all have girlfriends and they all fit into their different clubs. Will has never really found anywhere to fit in. I think that’s why so many people come up to me and tell me that they love Will and they resonate with him so much because it’s such a real character.” added Schnapp. 

Schnapp also talked about how different it was for him to play Will this season. He was used to playing him dealing with supernatural and darker aspects that while somewhat personal in nature (after all, he was controlled by the Mind Flayer and still feels its presence), didn’t really involve digging up deep things about his sexual identity.

“This season was a new thing for me. I had to explore him navigating his personal identity issues and struggling with growing up and assimilating into high school. It was new for me,” he said.

In previous interviews, Schnapp had refused to outright talk on the matter, dodging questions about his character’s sexual preferences and even causing some controversy when he said that Will’s sexuality was “up to the audience’s interpretation.” But with Volume 2 out, we think it’s safe to say that the young actor was just trying to avoid spoiling a story arc he knew was coming.

“Obviously, it was hinted at in Season 1: It was always kind of there, but you never really knew, is it just him growing up slower than his friends? Now that he’s gotten older, they made it a very real, obvious thing,” he shared. 

“Now it’s 100% clear that he is gay and he does love Mike. But before, it was a slow arc. I think it is done so beautifully because it’s so easy to make a character just like all of a sudden be gay.” The actor said, praising the creators for writing “this real character and this real journey and real struggle, and doing it so well.”

Schnapp is very interested to see where show creators, the Duffers Brothers, go with Will’s storyline in Season 5, and to be honest? So are we. In Stranger Things Season 4, we saw Robin (Maya Hawke) – the other out LGBTQ character in the franchise – become more comfortable in her skin after coming out to Steve (Joe Keery) and even try to pursue her own relationship with another girl. We can only hope that we get to see Will doing the same.

We know that realistically the chances of Mike (Finn Wolfhard) reciprocating his feelings are slim to none, but we truly hope that if Will makes it out alive from what we’re sure will be an epic final battle against Vecna and his forces of the Upside Down, we can see him find someone who makes him feel happy, accepted, and loved because he deserves it.

But in the meantime, let’s celebrate that in a franchise of such magnitude, we now have a main character representing and giving visibility to our community.

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All 4 seasons of Stranger Things are available to stream on Netflix. You can read the rest of Noah Schnapp’s interview with Variety here and our review of his coming out scene here. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for all queer stuff!