Last month, Stranger Things actor Noah Schnapp came out as gay in a lighthearted TikTok.
Going on to reference his Stranger Things character Will Byers, who he confirmed is gay last July, Noah quipped, “I guess I’m more similar to Will than I thought.”
For some context, Will being gay is something that was heavily implied throughout all seasons of the Netflix show to date.
Initially, Noah praised the Stranger Things writers for leaving Will’s sexuality “up to the audience’s interpretation.”
“I feel like they never really address it or blatantly say how Will is,” he told Variety last May. “I think that’s the beauty of it, that it’s just up to the audience’s interpretation, if it’s Will kind of just refusing to grow up and growing up slower than his friends, or if he is really gay.”
But, Noah ultimately ended up confirming last July that Will is in fact gay and that he’s in love with his onscreen best friend Mike Wheeler, who is portrayed by Finn Wolfhard.
“It was always kind of there, but you never really knew, is it just him growing up slower than his friends?” he told Variety. “Now that he’s gotten older, they made it a very real, obvious thing.”
“It’s 100% clear that he is gay and he does love Mike. 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,” he added.
The tension between Mike and Will has been apparent for some time across the show, with one Season 4 scene in particular causing a huge stir after fans theorized that Will was secretly confessing his own feelings under the guise of speaking about a different character: Eleven.
“These last few months she’s been so lost without you. She’s so different from other people... And when you’re different, sometimes you feel like a mistake,” Will said with his face pointedly turned away from Mike, before he bursted into stifled tears.
Finn previously hinted that he didn't know anything about Will’s sexuality, noting in 2019 that it was ultimately up to the showrunners, the Duffer Brothers, to address the subject if they wished.
Now addressing Noah's coming out, Finn revealed his reaction to the sweet TikTok during a new interview with GQ.
Sitting down with the publication on Wednesday, Finn was asked about the exact moment he saw Noah’s now-viral video for the first time.
And unsurprisingly, the 20-year-old was beyond proud of his costar.
“When I saw it, I just had a big smile on my face,” he gushed, with the interviewer noting that his eyes “softened” when the subject was brought up.
“I was just really proud of him,” he added.
Going on to briefly discuss just how close he is with Noah and the rest of the Stranger Things cast in real life, Finn made it clear that while they don’t speak every single day, they certainly see each other as “family.”
“We’re not on everyday-text vibes in any way… Do you text your cousins every day? Probably not,” he began.
“They’re our family. We’ll talk on each other’s birthdays. We’ll talk once in a while. But in the same way that family works, if I ever needed anything, they’re there,” he added.
