‘Stranger Things’ Star Says ‘It’s 100% Clear Will Is Gay And He Does Love Mike’

Variety has a new interview with Stranger Things star Noah Schnapp up that I found rather fascinating. The actor who plays will is the youngest member of the cast at 17, and recently made headlines with a feud with Doja Cat, of all people, after he shared her DMs about his co-star, Eddie actor Joseph Quinn.

While Schnapp buries that beef in the interview, what I found more interesting what was he had to say about his character Will, and cutting through all the obvious hints and subtext to simply say the following outright:

“Obviously, it was hinted at in Season 1: 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. But before, it was a slow arc.”

Stranger Things season 4 does not literally have Will come out and say he’s gay, using those words, but over the course of a season, we see him flinch when a girl flirts with him, we hear him pour out his feelings for Mike acting like it’s just how Eleven feels about him, and then has a conversation with his brother that is kind of him almost coming out, but again, not explicitly. Schnapp does hope that a true coming out scene is coming in season 5:

“Obviously, we hope for a coming out scene,” he says, and I do wonder if that does happen, how exactly it will be handled. While the show has made it obvious that Will has feeling for his best friend Mike, Mike and Eleven are very clearly in love with each other, and it seems unlikely Mike has the same feelings for Will. I very much doubt that they would flip that switch and end the series with Mike and Will paired up, though of course I don’t imagine Mike or his other friends rejecting him once they know either.

Schnapp also comments on what the Duffer Brothers have said about Will’s larger role in season 5, and he has many of the questions we all have:

“I also want to see them address this connection to the Mind Flayer and how that fits into the world. And I’ve always been wondering, why was Will the first victim and the first one captured? I just want to see it all tie in and all work out. So I’m excited to see what happens.”

A growing theory among fans is that Will is more than just the “first victim” that forged a connection with the Upside Down, but that he may have had either some unwitting role in its creation, or that he may have been a part of freezing its world in time, a few years in the past. The theory is that Will has an “ideal” time in his life, hanging with his friends playing D+D, that he wants to preserve forever, and that may have been manifested in the Upside Down. Schnapp brings that up as well:

“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.”

I expect big things from Will in season 5 of Stranger Things. Both personally, with his feelings for Mike, but for the larger picture of the whole of the series. Stay tuned.

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