Stranger Things' David Harbour talks Hopper's resurrection and why he's "like a baby"
Jim Hopper had to die – at least, that's according to David Harbour, who returns as the character in Stranger Things season 4.
The last time we saw Hawkins' beloved police chief, Hopper sacrificed himself to destroy a machine that was keeping a gateway between our world and the terrifying Upside Down open. Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder), Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), and co. still believe that "the American" perished in the explosion, but an after-credits scene – and the Stranger Things 4 trailer – confirmed to us that Hopper's being kept alive by the Russians, having been ferried to a demogorgon-filled prison in Kamchatka.
"Hopper's been on a journey," the actor tells Total Film in a new interview. "He's had a bit of a redemptive arc, and he hit a point where his control issues around his daughter were destroying him. They were destroying his relationships. He didn't really know how to be and he needed to die to be resurrected as this other thing. I think the way he starts season 4... he's like a baby, he's got a shaved head, he's all thin. But we see this thing awaken in him as a prisoner, this warrior spirit – and that's been in him since the beginning. We need that guy more than ever because the evil is getting so sophisticated and complex."
He continues: "One of the interesting things about Hawkins, across all seasons, is who dies and who lives, and what are the ramifications of that? What happens when Bob dies, or Billy dies, or Barb? Hopper has to figure out a way to beat this new evil and survive so he has to go back to his darkness, and expunge it, so that he can fight."
Harbour explains that "one of the biggest lessons Hopper's going to have to learn this season" is how to let himself be vulnerable with others –
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