Is Noah Schnapp stepping away from Hollywood? The “Stranger Things” star just graduated high school, and recently revealed that he’s already picked up a side hustle as he awaits filming to kick off for the final season of the Netflix sensation.
He’s also been accepted into the University of Pennsylvania, where he revealed that he intends to study business which is definitely not acting. So is he going to abandon the lucrative career that’s made him a huge star?
The 17 year old did admit in a recent interview with Flaunt Magazine that he’d considering going to college for acting, but ultimately decided that “acting was just kind of repetitive, and I wanted to try something new.”
He cited the fact that co-star Millie Bobby Brown is heading to Purdue University for health and human services as another reason for him to expand his own horizons.
“She’s kind of learning about other things,” he explained. “I thought it would make more sense to do something different. And business was a pretty clear next thing for me.”
This is nothing too shocking for Schnapp, who described his acting career as “a hobby” as recently as July in Variety. “It’s fun to explore different things. I’d love to direct and produce and write and be an entrepreneur and do all these different things.”
He also said that learning all of these other things is a way to improve and expand his craft as an actor. “at the end of the day, you are portraying all these different characters and you have to understand where it comes from,” he explained.
Schnapp has already dipped his toes into the entrepreneurial world with the launch of TBH, a vegan hazelnut counterpart to Nutella. “I love Nutella,” he told Variety. “It’s my favorite thing ever, but it’s so bad for you and so bad for the planet. And so I was like, there’s a gap in the market for that. I need to fix it.
As he prepares to pick up his business studies in the fall, Schnapp also revealed how he’s been keeping himself busy and in shape over the summer.
It turns out he took a page from Billy’s (Dacre Montgomery) book from “Stranger Things.” Max’s (Sadie Sink) bad boy big brother first stunned audiences — and all the moms of Hawkins — when he started working as a lifeguard.
“It’s kind of a ‘just for fun’ thing,” Schnapp said of his real-life turn as a lifeguard this past summer. He also declined to reveal which pool he’s been working at, which is definitely for the best. It’s already got to be pretty surreal for any fans who might find themselves in trouble and suddenly Will Byers is there to rescue them.
“I’ve kind of grown up with a normal life and normal friends and stuff outside of ‘Stranger Things,'” said the young actor of his decision to take on such an un-Hollywood gig. “So it’s kind of kept me grounded.”
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