Will Byers

Will is a quiet, artistic kid in Hawkins, Indiana, close with his small circle of friends and his mother Joyce. He rides his bike home from a D&D game one night and vanishes, an absence that sends his mother and friends searching for him and pulls the whole town toward something strange in the woods.

For most of the first season Will exists as a photograph and a fear, and yet Schnapp makes him feel specific before we've truly met him, through the friends and family who love him. When he does appear, the performance carries a haunted, careful quietness that makes you understand exactly why everyone fought so hard to bring him back.