Fans knew that Hopper couldn’t really be dead when he appeared to perish in the Stranger Things season 3 finale, so we were all relieved when the season 4 teaser confirmed he’d survived and for some reason was now working in a Russian labor camp.
David Harbour has recently revealed a big hitch to the character’s comeback, though. And that’s that he won’t be the same man that he was before.
Following the ST4 teaser, we assumed that Hopper hadn’t died but had just been kidnapped by the Russians and taken back to the motherland. However, in a new interview with Total Film, the actor has seemingly confirmed that the Hawkins sheriff has died and been resurrected, and he’ll come back with a new personality. Harbour explained that the development is inspired by Gandalf’s iconic rebirth in The Lord of the Rings, saying:
“I’ve had those discussions with them from the very first season,” the actor explained. “We were always interested in that idea of the Gandalf resurrection – Gandalf the Grey who fights the Balrog and then becomes Gandalf the White. It’s the idea of the resurrection of the character. And mythologically, Hopper, in a sense, had to change. I mean, you couldn’t go on the way he was going on. He has to resurrect in some way. So it was a great opportunity to do that. So we’ll see a very different guy going forwards. The same guy but in a different vein. It’s a very cool thing to be able to play.”
Hopper started out in season 1 in a very bad place, still grieving over the loss of his daughter. However, over seasons 2 and 3, he healed a lot, raising Eleven as his own after adopting her and starting up a relationship with Joyce Byers. He still had a lot of his old hang-ups, though, and it’ll be interesting to see how different the character is going forward and in what ways. Gandalf the White is wiser but also more distant from his friends. Will Hopper the White be the same?
Work on Stranger Things 4 had to be suspended earlier this year for obvious reason and unfortunately, it’s proving difficult to get things cracking again, partly because of safety precautions, and partly because of how busy the actors are. Production was actually supposed to restart this very week, but it doesn’t seem like that’s happened. Star Caleb McLaughlin has said that it’s possible filming won’t resume until 2021, in fact, but for now, we’ll just have to wait and see.
