Originally appeared on E! Online.
Spoilers for the final season of “Stranger Things” ahead.
Series creators Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer completely nailing Will Byers’ coming out moment? Stranger things have definitely happened.
Admittedly, Noah Schnapp — who’s inhabited Will on Netflix’s “Stranger Things” since its 2016 debut — was fully prepared to offer his insight, having publicly come out himself in January 2023.
“I was worried that I might need to,” he recently told Variety of workshopping the season five, episode seven moment with the Duffer brothers and episode director Shawn Levy, “but honestly, it was perfect. I really had no notes about it.”
Early in season one, Will’s mom Joyce (Winona Ryder) mentioned his father had sneeringly called him queer. And in season three, Finn Wolfhard’s Mike took issue with his friend not liking girls.
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. So after reading through the season’s first six episodes, “I kept texting the Duffers, ‘Is it done? Did you write it? Is it in 7 or 8? How are you gonna write it?'”
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When he finally got his hands on the script, “I was just in tears,” Schnapp detailed. “It was perfect.”
And the 21-year-old was more than ready to do it justice.
“It was like a 12-hour day of just that monologue,” the actor recounted. “And we weren’t even done after the 12-hour day. We came back a week later to reshoot certain parts of the scene for another 12 hours. It was like, ‘Oh my God, how many more times can I do this scene?'”
Despite the marathon shoot, “It was also nice because it allowed me to try so many different things,” said Schnapp. “I never felt stuck to anything.”
To prep, he turned to his most loquacious costar.
Maya Hawke, who made her debut as Robin Buckley in season three, “speaks like a madman so I asked, ‘How do you learn all these lines and not think about it in the scene?'” Schnapp shared of his process. “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.'”
Heeding her advice, “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. It would just be plain saying the lines out loud with no emotion, just to sink it in.”
Having fully absorbed the script by the day of the shoot, he continued, “I was able to explore the feelings and emotions, and it was fun to have those 12 hours to play and feel.”
The rest of the cast, meanwhile, “was so gracious,” said Schnapp. “I’ll never forget how supportive they were on that day and how respectful and giving they were to me, because they had to sit there through an entire night just hearing me ramble.”
For the takes they weren’t shown on-camera, he noted, “They could have gone and sat in Video Village or hung out, but they all sat there in their spots through the whole day. It was really special.”
The words themselves were also incredibly thoughtful, with Schnapp noting Will never uses the words, “I’m gay.”
When he addressed his sexuality in a 2023 TikTok clip, “I didn’t say the word ‘gay,'” Schnapp acknowledged. “It’s hard, and it feels scary to say it.”
And when you consider the horror series is set in 1980s Indiana, “I can’t imagine how much more pressure there was and how much more there was to lose,” Schnapp stressed. “When Will is first coming to terms with it in front of his friends, he’s probably scared to use that word, but there’s nothing wrong with it. I think he just felt more comfortable phrasing it that way.”
