David Harbour Thought His ‘Stranger Things’ Character Would Die In Season 1

With the fifth and final season of Stranger Things approaching imminently, David Harbour is surprised he made it this far. The Golden Globe nominee understands if fans were skeptical of his character Jim Hopper returning for Season 4 after he was seemingly obliterated while closing the gate to the Upside Down, the ultimate form of self-sacrifice to redeem him after his daughter’s death. “I think they were just committed to the beauty of that moment of his death,” he told GQ UK .

“It was so moving that I think they almost didn’t want him to be alive.” Watch on Deadline Related Stories Everything We Know About ‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 So Far ‘Stranger Things’ Creators Tease Big & Personal Final Season: “It’s Like Eight Blockbuster Movies” But the Indiana cop was resurrected for Season 4, which found him stranded in a Russian prison camp after surviving the lab explosion underneath Starcourt Mall. Harbour explained that he thought Hopper would have died by suicide in the first season after it was revealed that his daughter died from cancer and he blamed himself due to his exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.



With Season 5 premiering on Netflix in 2025, Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer teased in January that the final outing will be a cinematic farewell . “We spent a full year filming this season. By the end, we’d captured over 650 hours of footage,” Ross Duffer revealed.

“So, needless to say, this is our biggest and most ambitious season yet. It’s like eight blockbuster movies..