Stranger Things Noah Schnapp Confirms Will Byers Is Gay

After four monumental seasons, Netflix’s ‘80s sci-fi series Stranger Things is coming to its high-stakes conclusion as Season 4 dragged our beloved characters, and fans, through the wringer. With Season 5, a lot of loose ends will need to be tidied up, and one of those is the character arc of Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), who, for sentimental reasons, fans are specifically concerned about. In a recent interview with Variety, the young star broke his silence on Will's sexuality and on what he knows of the upcoming final season.

Stranger Things typically calls to mind its gangly group of adventurers who have been pitted up against the Duffer Brothers' nightmarish Upside Down monsters since the first season. It's these adventurers that fans have stayed loyal to for four seasons, watching them grow and change from the D&D-obsessed pre-teens to freshmen in high school. One in particular, Will Byers, has seemingly slipped through the writers' fingers as the show progressed. From being the main focal point that bound all the characters of Season 1 together, to becoming somewhat of an afterthought in later seasons, Will's character has been going through it. Season 4 saw Will finally "navigating his personal identity issues and struggling with growing up and assimilating into high school..." all while trying to stay sympathetic to his newly-adopted sister Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown).

All along the show has pushed the narrative that Will is "different" in some way. His mother, Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder), had to shield Will from his own father's bigotry and ignorance before their divorce. After returning from the Upside Down it was difficult for Will to reacclimate to his friend group, especially when all the others wanted to do was hang out with their new girlfriends. Schnapp addressed this otherness saying, "He just wants his best friend back and wants it to be like what it was in Season 1 when they were playing D&D in his basement."

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Schnapp continued saying:

"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... They are writing this real character and this real journey and real struggle and they’re doing it so well."

In spite of the subtleties of Will's estrangement from the group, fans were miffed when each passing episode went by without young Will professing his love for his best friend Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard). While it's understandable to seek representation and to demand that writers stop tip-toeing around the inevitable existence of the LGBTQ+ community, Stranger Things didn't write a "token" character, but a well-represented storyline for Will. The online debates demanding that Will explicitly proclaim his sexuality are a real-life nightmare for anyone who has ever dealt with the life-changing event of coming out to friends and family. On top of that, Stranger Things takes place in the '80s when being gay wasn't nearly as accepted as it is today. Schnapp allows that Will, "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."

An incredibly poignant scene in Season 4 allows the two best friends a moment of peace amid the chaos that this last season descended into. Tearfully, Will explains to Mike why he's so important to him, and how much he loves him, but he filters this information through Mike's relationship with Eleven. In the scene, Will calls Mike the heart of the group and says, "I know it's sort of on the nose, but that's what holds this whole party together. Heart. Because, I mean, without heart, we'd all fall apart." The pain is visceral, and Schnapp admitted that "It was only until after I did the scene of me in the van, where they saw me crying and the protectiveness that you see with Jonathan looking in the rearview mirror..." that they decided to film the exchange between Will and his brother Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) later on. The writers felt it was "very important for people to see that Will is not alone."

The end of Season 4 saw the group finally reuniting, but in the face of Hawkins' destruction at the hands of Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower). Schnapp says that in Season 5 "they’re going to focus more on Will and build that storyline," possibly expanding on Will's ongoing mental connection with Vecna.

All four seasons of Stranger Things are available to stream on Netflix. You can watch our explainer on Will's powerful monologue below: