Before becoming one of the most popular kids in the film industry, Noah Schnapp was just a normal kid doing normal stuff like riding bikes and playing video games. In fact, it was while he was at camp that he got the phone call asking him to be on Stranger Things, effectively changing his life forever. In an interview with NKD magazine, Schnapp talked about his audition, the role he originally went out for, and the phone call that marked the beginning of his career.
“I go to camp every summer for seven weeks and it’s like sleepaway camp,” Schnapp tells NKD. “You have three phone calls every summer with your parents and I was on my last phone call. And this was some audition blurred with all the other auditions I did, so I didn’t remember what it was, but I remember them calling me.”
At the time, Schnapp originally auditioned for the role of Mike on the show. He had auditioned for many shows that he did not even remember what Stranger Things, then titled Montauk, was even about. He was, nevertheless, thrilled when he learned about the show and his character.
“They called me and they were like, ‘Hey, Noah!’ and I was like, ‘Who’s this?’ and they said, ‘Oh, you got the role of Will Byers on Montauk!’ and then they explained the whole thing and I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ he says. “I was so excited and things have just been going from there. It was just very different from things I’ve seen.”
If that’s not exciting enough or you, you might like to know that Noah was at the same camp the following year when Stranger Things first came out on Netflix, so he didn’t even know about the show’s success until he was back home. The actor spoke with Teen Vogue last year, telling them,
I went to camp and I came back, and I saw that people from across the world were watching the show, and everyone was interacting with us on social media. I was so happy and amazed by how far the show had gone.
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