*SPOILERS ALERT* Noah Schnapp is spilling the beans – No, not about his and Doja Cat’s DMs drama! – on his Stranger Things character Will Byers, and confirming the popular Will Byers theory that’s been a hot topic amongst the cult show’s fans since Season 1! In an interview with Variety, the 17-year-old actor revealed how Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2 was a “different” season and “a new thing.” This time, Schnapp had to explore Will’s “personal identity issues and struggling with growing up and assimilating into high school,” which was new for him.
Noah was then asked what he understood about Will’s personal journey in Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2, what it would look like and what he was going to be contending with. To this, Noah Schnapp responded, “I mean, it’s pretty clear this season that Will has feelings for Mike [Wheeler, Finn Wolfhard]. 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.”
Schnapp feels Will has always felt this way, especially with the fact that all his friends have girlfriends and fit into their different clubs. On the other hand, Will has always found it difficult to fit anywhere. Schnapp believes that it’s Will being “such a real character” that has so many people coming up to him and telling him how much they love his character and how Will resonates with them.
Moreover, before Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2’s emotional sequence where Will indirectly confesses his unrequited feelings to Mike, Byers’ sexuality was always alluded to right from the first season. On this, Noah Schnapp stated, “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. 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.”
Noah revealed how people have come up to him, giving an instance of a 40-year-old man in Paris, who told him, “Wow, this Will character made me feel so good. And I related to it so much. That is exactly who I was when I was a kid.” Schnapp was “so happy” to hear these kind words, before concluding, “They are writing this real character and this real journey and real struggle and they’re doing it so well.”
