Stranger Things' Noah Schnapp confirms Will is gay, scared of coming out: 'He does love Mike'

Stranger Things star Noah Schnapp has finally confirmed that his character Will Byers is gay on the show. Noah had previously said that Will's sexuality was open to the audience's interpretation, but that was before the release of volume 2 of season 4, which featured an emotional scene between Will and Mike. Noah has now said that it was very clear in the recently released season that Will is, in fact, gay.

Noah confirmed that Will is in love with his best friend Mike Wheeler, played by Finn Wolfhard, but doesn't want to hurt Eleven's feelings by confessing it. Noah also said that he is hoping for Will to have a coming-out scene in the fifth and last season of the Netflix show.

In a recent interview with Variety, Noah said, "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...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...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."

Noah also addressed a potential coming-out scene for Will in season 5, saying, "This isn't just a single layer thing of he's struggling with coming out. It's this multifaceted trauma that goes years back, because he was taken by the Demogorgon and then his friends, they never acknowledged him, and now he's scared to come out and doesn't know if they'll accept him. And then Eleven is like his sister, but he doesn't want to hurt her because if he says he likes Mike, that's gonna hurt her feelings."

The fifth season of the Netflix original series by Matt and Ross Duffer is expected to come out in 2024. Apart from Noah and Finn, the sci-fi horror series also stars Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Sadie Sink, Caleb McLaughlin, Winona Ryder and David Harbour, among others.