It was never a question of whether Jim Hopper, who appeared to die (“die”) in the Stranger Things season three finale, would return in season four — it was how would he would return. Actor David Harbour was initially cagey about the identity of “the American,” but now he’s straight-up comparing Hopper’s resurrection to that of Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings. “I knew. We knew. We had talked about it,” he told Total Film. “I just wanted to preserve the fantasy for everyone. And it’s such a weird position that we’re in now with so much media, that everybody wants to talk to you about it.”
I would prefer to talk to Harbour about playing Oscar the Grouch or his Vegas marriage to Lily Allen (yes, that Lily Allen, the one who wrote a song about how her brother Alfie, a.k.a. Theon on Game of Thrones, is lazy as hell), but I understand his point.
Harbour claims Stranger Things creators the Duffer brothers told him from the get-go about Hopper’s arc. “I’ve had those discussions with them from the very first season. 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,” he explained.
I’m sorry. I still can’t get over the Lily Allen thing.
It’s adorable, and I have no idea why it makes me so happy. Mazel tov to them!
(Via Total Film)