NEED TO KNOW
- Noah Schnapp plays into fan theories about a possible Stranger Things storyline
- The 21-year-old actor stars as Will Byers on the Netflix series, a character who has a crush on his best friend Mike Wheeler
- “It’s probably the most commented comment in all my late night videos,” Schnapp said of the potential “Byler” romance
Noah Schnapp is keeping coy about a possible on-screen romance.
In a new TikTok video posted on Monday, Oct. 27, the 21-year-old actor smiled as he read a fan’s comment hoping for a “Byler” plot with his Stranger Things costar Finn Wolfhard in the show’s upcoming fifth and final season.
“Is byler happening or not?” a user named Mia asked, adding a crying face emoji.
Her post was in reference to Schnapp’s character Will Byers having a crush on his best friend, Wolfhard’s Mike Wheeler. Byler is their last names fused together.
“You guys love saying this,” Schnapp said in a shirtless selfie video posted from his bed. “And I never listen.”
He continued, “It’s probably the most commented comment in all my late-night videos. And, I always ignore it.”
“We need byler,” one person wrote, adding a picture of Will and Mike sitting together. Another said, “YOU IGNORE IT BECAUSE U KNOW IT’S TRUE OK.”
Days earlier, Schnapp once again teased an upcoming love story, posting another selfie video with the words “This song will be in season 5…I wonder why.” The TikTok was set to Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now.”
“Y’all are on to something,” he captioned the clip.
Fan theories have swirled online about Byler, and not just in Schnapp’s comment section, but in discussion forums like Reddit.
One post on the platform included a screenshot of a season 4 scene where Will uses a conversation about Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) to reveal his true feelings for Mike.
While sitting in the backseat of a van driven by his older brother, Will shows Mike a picture he painted.
“My point is, see how you’re leading us here?” Will says, pointing to the painting. “You’re guiding the whole party, inspiring us. That’s what you do. And see your coat of arms here? It’s a heart. And I know it’s sort of on-the-nose, but that’s what holds this whole party together, heart! Because without heart, we’d all fall apart, even El, especially El,” Will tells Mike.
Will goes on to say that El is “so different from other people.”
(L-R): Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler and Noah Schnapp as Will Byers on Stranger Things.
Netflix
“And when you’re different, sometimes you feel like a mistake. But you make her feel like she’s not a mistake at all,” Will tells Mike, becoming emotional as he still uses Eleven to mask his true feelings.
In August 2023, Schnapp told Variety he credited his Stranger Things character Will for helping him to come out as gay.
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“Once I did fully embrace that Will was gay, it was just an exponential speed towards accepting it for myself,” he told the outlet. “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,” Schnapp said.
Stranger Things’ final installment will drop on Netflix in three parts: Volume 1 on Nov. 26, Volume 2 on Christmas and the series finale on New Year’s Eve. Each part will feature four episodes.
