Noah Schnapp says he ‘might still be closeted’ without Stranger Things role
“I would be in a completely different place”
Stranger Things star Noah Schnapp has shared how the positive reaction to his character Will Byers sexuality helped him come out as gay.
“It kind of blew up in the press, and everyone was like, ‘Oh, Will’s gay! Hooray!’” he recently told Variety of his character coming out.
“I saw all these comments on Instagram and TikTok. There was not one bad thing about him being gay. I was like, if he has all this support, then why should I worry about anything?”
He admitted that fans speculating his sexuality “made me hold it down deeper” because “it was kind of being poked and prodded out of me in such a public way.”
“I would be in a completely different place if I didn’t have Will to portray”
Schnapp went on: “Once I did fully embrace that Will was gay, it was just an exponential speed towards accepting it for myself.”
“I would be in a completely different place if I didn’t have Will to portray, and to embrace and help me accept myself. I think if I never played that character, I probably would still be closeted.”
Elsewhere in the interview, he explains co-star and best pal Millie Bobby Brown’s adorable reaction when he told her he was gay.
Schnapp recalled feeling how he needed to “tell everyone” to stop feeling like he was hiding something anymore.
This began by coming out to a list of people – one of which was Bobby Brown.
“I kept trying to do it in person with her, and it was too hard. So then I just FaceTimed her one day in the middle of a Party City and I was like, ‘Millie, I’m gay.’
“And she was like, ‘Oh, Schnapper! You told me finally!’”
The young star came out to the masses in January this year, publicly sharing the news in a TikTok video.
The text on the clip 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’”
He could be seen lip-syncing the words: “You know what it never was? That serious. It was never that serious. Quite frankly, will never be that serious.”
In the caption, Schnapp teased: “I guess I’m more similar to Will than I thought.”