Noah Schnapp on the 'hopeful' 'Stranger Things' finale and Will's fate

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This article contains spoilers from the series finale of “Stranger Things.”At this moment, somewhere on the internet, “Stranger Things” fans are rabidly and rapidly giving their feedback on how the series resolved the years-long plight of horrors faced by their favorite ragtag troop from Hawkins.But for Noah Schnapp, it didn’t matter how the story concluded.

When filming on the final season wrapped last December, it was a bleak ending.At least initially.The Netflix drama, to this point, had taken up half of Schnapp’s life.

When he was 11, he began portraying Will Byers, the baby-faced boy who was abducted while biking home at night from a friend’s house and pulled into an alternate dimension known as the Upside Down.It was the catalyst that linked Will to its powerful creatures that tormented him and his inner circle for years.

All the while, Schnapp and his fictional alter ego became increasingly intertwined.Like Will, he was a boy coming of age in his own upside down dimension — fame — while stepping into his true self.

“I will never forget that last day and how that last scene felt — it was just so surreal,” he said.“The goodbye was hard.

I grappled with this feeling like my life is over and I’m in a crisis, this is my whole identity and all I’ve ever known, and now it’s ending.”But for Will, “Stranger Things,” created by Matt and Ross Duffer, concluded on more hopeful terms.He began the two-hour series finale — released in the closing hours of 2025, both on the platform and in select movie theaters nationwide — knowing he had no secrets that could be weaponized against him, making him better positioned to help put an end to the Upside Down — and its otherwordly creatures.Over two separate interviews from New York — a video call and, later, a phone call 20 minutes after I viewed the final episode — Schnapp discussed the comp...