Noah Schnapp as Will Byers in 'Stranger Things' season 5. Courtesy of Netflix Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text [This story contains major spoilers through episode seven of Stranger Things 5.] Noah Schnapp was waiting for this moment to come. After reading the scripts for the first six episodes of Stranger Things 5, the actor who plays Will Byers - the boy who was abducted to kickstart Netflix's megahit sci-fi series that is now coming to an end - knew that his character would finally be coming out as gay in one of the final two episodes of the series. So when he got the script for the penultimate episode of the Duffer brothers' saga, "The Bridge," which was co-directed by executive producer Shawn Levy and the show's creators/showrunners Ross and Matt Duffer, Schnapp took a moment for himself to soak it all in. Related Stories TV Harlan Coben on New Netflix Series 'Run Away' Getting Disturbing, Like All His Stories: "In Real Life, I'm Actually a Fairly OK Guy" TV Netflix Releases an Intense 'Stranger Things' Series Finale Trailer "I read it alone and just cried and I was like, 'It's perfect,'" he tells The Hollywood Reporter about these final episodes. Then when he finally filmed the scene with the majority of his close-knit cast - during a 12-hour day of filming - he felt "a weight off my chest reading that scene aloud with everyone. I felt like, 'Ok, I can do this.'" The pivotal moment has received mixed reviews, as it closed out an action-packed seventh episode and leads Stranger Things into its epic, supersized series finale that will be simultaneously releasing in 500 theaters across the country when it streams on Netflix starting at 5 p.m. PT/ 8 p.m. ET on New Year's Eve. Below, Schnapp brings THR inside the episode as he reflects on his personal feelings playing out Will's evolution, shares his hopes for how Will's story will connect with young viewers and teases an ending that he says leaves nothing more to be told. "I can say that you will be satisfied," he promises. *** This seventh episode was such a pivotal Will episode, but really this is a pivotal Will season. At what point in the process of making this show did you understand how big a role Will would be playing in the end? Really not until we read the scripts. I remember maybe a month or so before the table read, Shawn [Levy, co-director] and the Duffers were telling me it would be even more focused on Will, but I didn't really understand until I read episodes one through six at the table read, and especially episode four, and then they wrote seven. It was so exciting. You were more in the dark this season about what was coming, right? It was the same as always. We didn't really get anything in advance. We'd read the scripts. Usually, they would have most of the season written except for the end that they're writing as we're going. I didn't know seven and eight [ahead of time]. Did your own personal predictions line up in the end, about what Will's initial abduction would mean? No, it's crazy. The whole flashback in episode one [of season five] explaining what happened in the Upside Down [when Will was taken]? I knew he was mentally strong but the physical strength that he had, where he was climbing up the tree and jumping and shooting the gun; he was so agile and quick and athletic. We underestimated him. And the powers, I never knew that was coming. That was crazy. But such an honor and so fun. It was exciting to get to play this side of Will that's not walked all over, who is triumphant and stronger and more powerful. Did the Duffers give you a heads up that Will's coming-out scene would be in episode seven? I read one through six at the table read and thought, "OK, it's not in here. So it's going to be in seven or eight." And then the rest of the year I just kept needling the Duffers like, "Did you write it? How did you write it? Is it Joyce [Winona Ryder] who I'm going to be speaking with?" And they were like, "Noah, relax, we got it." They sent out the scripts mid-summer, and I read it alone and just cried and, oh my god, I was like, "It's perfect." Then I spent the rest of the few months of the year stressing about making it perfect; preparing and reading it over and over and over. And then we filmed it in October. "In the coming-out scene, I never had so much dialogue to work with in a scene, so getting to express myself verbally was so nice. And getting to play the lighthearted side of Will was something I had never done before," Schnapp says. Courtesy of Netflix Viewers had been told that we would cry in this final season. Is this the episode everyone has been referring to the most? There are so many [moments]. The whole thing is crying. But this is part of it, for sure. What was the table read like for this seventh episode? It w