WSQK The Squawk—The Stranger Things radio station that's always turned up to 11!
How was collaborating with her? What was it like working so closely with her this final season after having played her son for almost a decade? So after reading through the season's first six episodes, "I kept texting the Duffers, 'Is it done? 'The Most Impossible Stranger Things Quiz'
Stranger Things' Finn, Caleb & Gaten vs.
I think he just felt more comfortable phrasing it that way."
As the series comes to a close, with the series finale dropping on New Year's Eve, we're heading back to the beginning. The performance is further accented by Schapp’s real-world relationship to the topic, having publicly come out as gay in 2023.
Variety spoke with Schnapp to unpack the distinguished scene, how he shaped it with series creators Matt and Ross Duffer and director Shawn Levy and his feelings about closing the book on his decade-plus role in “Stranger Things.”
At what point did you find out that Will was going to come out in Season 5, Episode 7?
Maya speaks like a madman so I asked, “How do you learn all these lines and not think about it in the scene?” She said, “It’s not about how well you know it, it’s how long you’ve known it for, so just prep for months before.” So I’d just go through it morning and night every day for months before shooting, but I wouldn’t prep how to say it or how to feel.
After Will catches Robin and girlfriend Vickie making out, the two start talking on a deeper level. I don’t want this. I kind of had to because it was so nerve-racking to know that the entire cast was there watching me.
Stranger Things' Noah Schnapp Speaks Out After Will Confirms His Sexuality
Stranger Things' Noah Schnapp Speaks Out After Will Confirms His Sexuality
Spoilers for the final season of Stranger Things ahead.
Series creators Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer completely nailing Will Byers' coming out moment?
Just after coming out in 2023, Noah opened up to Variety about what that felt like at the time. You always feel like you don’t know anything and you have so much more to learn, but then it makes you realize that we’ve spent 10 years here, and we do have some experience now. But it isn’t just specific to that; that’s a universal feeling of feeling left out or feeling different, or being scared to be who you are.
While the character has spent much of the series as the victim, he takes center stage as a hero in Season 5, revealed to have sorcerer-like supernatural abilities in the season’s fourth episode that concluded Volume 1. It was perfect.
Did you get the opportunity to workshop the script with the Duffers or with Shawn Levy, who directed “The Bridge” with the Duffers?
I think it helps him accept himself, and you totally see it from the beginning of the season.
But it wasn't until the current final season that Schnapp delivered Will's poignant monologue, admitting that no, "I don't like girls."
With all the buildup, "You know that it's coming," Schnapp explained.