Noah Schnapp said he “cried” following the reaction after revealing that he was gay.

The 18-year-old Jewish actor, who rose to fame on the hit Netflix science fiction series Stranger Things, came out in a video in January.

Schnapp, who stars as Will Byers in the drama, said he received "a thousand texts of hearts and congratulations and rainbow flags" after coming out.

After being initially resistant to look at the response on social media, he said: “I was crying. I was like, 'I made it. I'm done. I don't have to worry'."

Recalling his family’s response to finding out the news, Schnapp told Variety: "Being fully aware of it and just completely, blatantly hiding it, it was really hard. It just made everything miserable for those months.

"I couldn't tell (my mother) how I was feeling without telling her what the problem was, so just one night at dinner, I was like, 'This is it'. She was like, 'Finally, you told me'."

Noah Schnapp

Noah Schnapp as Will Byers in Stranger Things (Photo: Netflix)

Schnapp also told fellow Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown and the series executive producer Shawn Levy.

He added: "It was truly such a liberating feeling, just seeing my parents cheer me on. I've never felt so supported and loved."

Following the Stranger Things season four finale, Schnapp told the publication that his character Will was gay prior to coming out.

"I guess I'm more similar to Will than I thought," the actor captioned his TikTok video this year. He also wrote: "When I finally told my friends and family I was gay after being scared in the closet for 18 years and all they said was 'we know'."

Fans began to speculate about Will’s sexuality after the 2016 debut of the hit Netflix drama.

Schnapp hit out at comments at the time, saying: “For me, Will being gay or not is besides the point.”

In June, Schnapp said on Instagram that he attended his first Pride event in New York, US.

Stranger Things will return for a fifth and final season with Terminator star Linda Hamilton joining the cast.

The show is set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana in the 1980s. Local residents have had to fight off the dark forces from an alternate dimension.

I’m Jewish so more like @AdamSandler and the Hannukah song! It’s usually #christmukah in my family

— Noah Schnapp (@noah_schnapp) November 14, 2017

His Stranger Things character may not be Jewish – although Winona Ryder, who plays his mum in the Netflix show, is also Jewish – but Schnapp has played Jewish characters throughout his career. 

He played a young Jewish boy in the 2019 film Abe, who cooks to unite his half-Israeli and half-Palestinian family. and he also played a young shepherd smuggling Jewish refugees across the border in Nazi-occupied France in Waiting for Anya. He told the JC while promoting the 2020 film, “I really resonated with it,” he said, “being Jewish”.