Noah Schnapp unpacks Will's powerful Stranger Things 5, Volume 1 cliffhanger: 'A whiplash of a re...

The Duffer Brothers clarify one crucial aspect of the reveal, while the star shares his unlikely inspiration for the money shot. Noah Schnapp unpacks Will's powerful Stranger Things 5, Volume 1 cliffhanger: 'A whiplash of a reveal for me' The Duffer Brothers clarify one crucial aspect of the reveal, while the star shares his unlikely inspiration for the money shot. By Nick Romano :maxbytes(150000):stripicc()/NicholasRomanoauthorphotoadc9b60763e34711935cbf7b3d768d24.jpg) Nick Romano is a senior editor at with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment.

The Duffer Brothers clarify one crucial aspect of the reveal, while the star shares his unlikely inspiration for the money shot.

Noah Schnapp unpacks Will's powerful Stranger Things 5, Volume 1 cliffhanger: 'A whiplash of a reveal for me'

The Duffer Brothers clarify one crucial aspect of the reveal, while the star shares his unlikely inspiration for the money shot.

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in *Vanity Fair*, Vulture, IGN, and more.

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November 26, 2025 8:01 p.m. ET

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Will (Noah Schnapp) and Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) on 'Stranger Things 5'. Credit:

- Noah Schnapp shares his reaction to the big Will reveal at the end of *Stranger Things* season 5, Volume 1 and how it came together.

- The Duffers clarify one big element to the surprise and why Will is "not a new [SPOILER]."

- Schnapp talks about his personal connection to Will's coming-out moment and the unlikely inspiration he took for the cliffhanger shot.

**Warning: This article contains major spoilers from *Stranger Things* season 5, episode 4, "Sorcerer."**

In the lead-up to the start of production on *Stranger Things* season 5, a few members of the crew, including executive producer and director Shawn Levy, would casually mention to Noah Schnapp, "You've got good stuff coming up. Be excited."

At the time, he shook it off. "Whatever that means," the actor behind Will Byers remembers thinking. It wasn't until the first table read that it all finally set in.

Schnapp skimmed through the season 5 scripts earlier that morning in and out of the shower on his phone. "I was like, 'I have to make sure I see all my parts and know what to say,'" he recalls to **. "I don't wanna sound stupid at the table read." When he got to the end of episode 4, the big cliffhanger to the season's Volume 1, he ran out of the shower to go tell Brooke, the assistant with whom he was living at the time, "I have powers!"

In the final moments of the episode, titled "Sorcerer," Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) makes a dramatic return to attack the soldiers occupying Hawkins. He leaves the survivors, including the core crew, to be devoured by Demogorgons, but not before telling Will how insignificant and weak he is.

On the contrary...To save his friends from being eaten alive, his eyes turn white, his body becomes rigid, and he throws up his arms to telekinetically destroy the Demogorgons from harming his friends. The final frame is a single trail of blood leaking from his flared nostril that Will wipes away — the same gesture typically reserved for Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown).

"It was a whiplash of a reveal for me," Schnapp says of that moment.

A surprise seasons in the making

Noah Schnapp as Will in the 'Stranger Things 5,' Volume 1 finale.

Courtesy of Netflix

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For series creators Matt and Ross Duffer, who also direct Schnapp in the episode, this moment was in the making since season 2. "Every time we got to a season, it just felt like, 'The time's not right now,'" Ross shares. "And then finally we hit the final season and we're like, 'If we're gonna do it, this is our last chance to do it.'"

Once the decision was made to split season 5 into multiple parts, they both knew this would be the cliffhanger to Volume 1. "Because we've known this was coming, we've been trying to lay the groundwork for years," Ross adds. "So it was a relief to finally be able to do it and go all out."

It syncs back with what the Duffer Brothers have been saying since press began for *Stranger Things 5*: The final season is all about rewinding to where it all began and providing answers to long-simmering questions. "The show started with Will's disappearance," Matt says. "So it made sense to center much of the final season on and around Will."

Schnapp admits, "It was fun to talk to Millie and be like, 'Now we're both superheroes.'"

Noah Schnapp at a 'Stranger Things' Netflix activation.

Courtesy of Netflix

Matt clarifies one crucial technicality to Will's newly emerged abilities. "He's not a new Eleven, and that was important to us," the co-creator says. "In fact, he doesn't really have powers himself. He's channeling Vecna's powers. Because he's, since season 1, been connected to him and, in part, connected to the Mind Flayer, that is allowing him to tap into and use these powers if he's in close enough proximity."

For that reason, Schnapp wanted the physical mechanics of Will's power flex to look different than Eleven. He explains how it's not an outstretched arm gesture but more of an upwards maneuver, taking inspiration from footage he watched of animals in the wild.

"I consistently channeled a 6,000-pound silverback gorilla," the star shares. "I would watch videos of how they walk and how they move and breathe, and just grunt and imagine it as I'm getting into that to show that's not Baby Will in there."

Will's coming-out moment

Noah Schnapp and Maya Hawke on 'Stranger Things 5'.

Courtesy of Netflix

Working on *Stranger Things* season 5 forced Schnapp to reflect. He joined the show when he was 11 and experienced his formative years in the public limelight alongside his cast mates, like Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, and Caleb McLaughlin.

He's now 21 years old and watching newer child actors join the Duffers drama to play younger Will — one for the season 5 premiere's opening flashback to the Upside Down (augmented with CG facial touches) and another for the home videos of Will that enhance the episode 4 ending sequence.

"I was that small and had that physicality," Schnapp says of guiding the younger Will actor through the opening sequence. "Especially with the first five minutes, to step into these director shoes and really get into the nitty gritty of 'How do I breathe?' 'How do I look?' 'How do I turn?' and relaying it onto that kid was a really cool new experience that I've never had."

The story feels personal to Schnapp, not just because he went from mentee to mentor of these younger Wills. In the script from Paul Dichter, Will's coming-out story as a gay man plays out as Will comes into his power. Only by listening to the supportive words of Robin (Maya Hawke) in his head and finally accepting himself does he unlock the abilities.

Schnapp came out as gay publicly in 2023, and he referenced his own personal life as much as he could. "It wasn't just like a one-note coming-out story," he says. "It was complex, wrapped up in this internal struggle of an external world that we're fighting. To overcome this external force, he has to accept his internal struggle. It was kind of like an interwoven superhero coming-out story."**

The money shot

Noah Schnapp at a 2025 Netflix activation.

Courtesy of Netflix

When it came time to execute it, the nerves threatened to take over. After that initial table read, cast and crew tapped Schnapp on the shoulder to relay their excitement around the reveal. "How are we gonna do this? Is it gonna live up to the script?" he thought to himself.

They shot the entire episode 4 ending through a series of night shoots that played out over a month from July into August. There was a week of rehearsal to get all the highly choreographed beats, including the 86-second oner that unfolds during the Demogorgon attack on the military base. His solo beats were filmed in a week.

Schnapp wanted to get that final bloodbleed perfect. The actor received previz in advance, a rough animated version the effects department put together to help visualize how the sequence would progress. "I remember watching that all year until I filmed it in July, watching it religiously," Schnapp says. "I'm gonna do that, I wanna fix that, I wanna change that. Because I was so excited. So, yeah, I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted it to look like in my head."

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On the night of, Schnapp "was prepared to do 100,000 takes of the shot," he shares. They pulled it off in one.

"I ran to the tent, we watched it. I looked at Ross and we just started laughing," he remembers. "We were like, 'Don't touch it! That's it. We're done.'"

So what does this all mean moving ahead to Volume 2, which will bring episodes 5-7 to Netflix on Christmas Day? *Stranger Things* has been setting up an eventual final confrontation between Eleven and Vecna, but Matt calls this Will reveal a "new chess piece on the board in the battle for Hawkins." Heading into Volume 2, he adds, "Those two characters and their connection really remains at the center of the show."**

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Source: Sci-Fi

Published: November 29, 2025 at 11:38AM on Source: RON MAG

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