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Stranger Things producers asked Noah Schnapp to speak in a higher pitch after he hit puberty

25 August 2022, 17:03

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By Emma Kershaw

"That was like, 'I don't know what to tell you. My voice is dropping. I don't sound young anymore."

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Noah Schnapp has revealed that the Stranger Things producers once asked him to change the pitch of his voice while filming an earlier season of the series, because puberty had caused him to look and sound much older than his character Will Byers.

The 17-year-old actor — who was just ten years old when he started filming the show — says that the Netflix hit’s crew were not thrilled that the young actors had aged past their characters in the show so rapidly.

"It was the peak time of change, and puberty and growing up and just everything was changing with all of us, and the directors were just not loving it," Noah told FLAUNT in a recent interview.

Noah Schnapp says producers asked him to raise the pitch of his voice after he hit puberty. Picture: Netflix

Noah then went on to explain that a producer actually asked him if he would be able to speak in a higher pitch and "slouch a little bit" in order to maintain the "season one innocence" of his character once he started to hit puberty.

"That was like, 'I don't know what to tell you. My voice is dropping. I don't sound young anymore," he said.

In the most recent episodes, the age difference between himself and his character is, of course, something that was out of the control of both Noah and the directors — filming was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Stranger Things 4 was released a lot later than initially planned.

Noah Schnapp: 2022 vs 2016 — Noah Schnapp in 2022 vs. Noah Schnapp in 2016. Picture: Anthony Behar/Sipa USA, David Livingston/Getty Images

Funnily enough, Noah is one of the few cast members who is closer to the age of his character than the others. Will is meant to be 15 years old, while Noah is currently 17.

Millie Bobby Brown is 18, compared to Eleven who is around 14/15 years old. The others (Sadie Sink, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin) are all 20-21 years old compared to their 15-year-old characters.

In an interview earlier this year, both Millie and Noah were both shocked by their characters’ ages, assuming that they would be closer to their own ages. "Eleven is 14?," Millie and Noah say in unison during an interview with Stranger Things Brasil to promote season four.

Watch the trailer for Stranger Things Season 4 Vol 2

As for Stranger Things 5? It’s looking probable that the final instalment of the show is going to involve a time jump. "I’m sure we will do a time jump," the Duffer brothers told TVLine in June. "Ideally, we’d have shot [Seasons 4 and 5] back to back, but there was just no feasible way to do that."