'Stranger Things' Star Noah Schnapp Confirms Both He and His ...

Life and art are coalescing for Stranger Things star Noah Schnapp, who has officially come out as gay six months after confirming his character Will’s sexuality. 

“I guess I’m more similar to Will than I thought,” he captioned a TikTok video released on Thursday, which read: “When I finally told my friends and family I was gay after being scared in the closet for 18 years and all they said was ‘we know.’” Schnapp was lip-syncing to audio of someone saying, “You know what it never was? That serious. It was never that serious. Quite frankly, will never be that serious.”

Schnapp, who is currently a freshman studying business at the University of Pennsylvania, addressed his character’s sexuality for the first time over the summer. “It was always kind of there, but you never really knew, is it just him growing up slower than his friends?” Schnapp said of Will’s lack of romantic story line to Variety. “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 [his best friend, played by Finn Wolfhard]. 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.”

Prior to Stranger Things’ fourth season, Schnapp had dodged questions about whether or not Will was gay, insisting that it was “up to the audience’s interpretation.” But that was all part of shielding the Netflix show’s ultimate reveal, the actor explained. “I mean, it’s pretty clear this season that Will has feelings for Mike. They’ve been intentionally pulling that out over the past few seasons,” he told Variety. “Even in season one, they hinted at that and slowly, slowly grew that storyline. I think for season four, 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.”

In Stranger Things’ upcoming final season, Schnapp said that creators the Duffer brothers are planning to “focus more on Will,” and that he’s hoping for a proper “coming-out scene” for his character.