Entertainment, Dec 31: Actor Noah Schnapp has spoken about the moment Will Byers comes out as gay in the final season of Stranger Things, describing it as an emotional turning point he had anticipated long before it reached the screen.
Schnapp said he sensed early in the series that Will’s journey was moving in that direction, but it became clearer after he read the scripts for the first six episodes of the fifth season. At that stage, he realised the character’s storyline was building towards a defining moment in one of the closing chapters.
That expectation was confirmed when he received the script for the penultimate episode, The Bridge. Reading the scene alone for the first time, Schnapp said it immediately resonated with him, calling it a moment that felt right for the character and carried a strong personal impact even before filming began.
The episode was jointly directed by executive producer Shawn Levy and series creators Matt and Ross Duffer. Schnapp said the emotional weight of the scene remained when he later performed it on set with his co-stars, adding that the experience was both intense and cathartic.
He described filming the sequence as a release, saying it felt as though a long-held burden had lifted. Once he spoke the lines aloud during the shoot, he said he felt reassured and ready to fully embrace the moment.
The scene has drawn a range of reactions from viewers and appears late in a fast-moving episode that feeds directly into the show’s conclusion. The final episode of Stranger Things is scheduled to stream on Netflix on December 31, with a simultaneous theatrical release in select cinemas across the United States, marking the end of the long-running series.
