Stranger Things season 3 will be the show’s darkest year yet
On Thursday, Netflix’s massively popular retro sci-fi series Stranger Things received 13 Emmy nominations, including one for Outstanding Drama Series. Speaking to Deadline about the noms, director and executive producer Shawn Levy said that season 3 — which is currently being filmed in Atlanta, Georgia and “shaping up really, really well” — is “definitely going to yet darker still, places that I think audiences are going to really love. It’s got so much heart and humor.”
David Harbour, who plays Hawkins police chief Jim Hopper, got an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama. He told Deadline that season 3 would be inspired by some “epic” movies from 1985, but didn’t reveal any lest he “get in trouble.”
"If you’re a real fan of Stranger Things and you really want to know, I would go look at the great films that were released in ’85, of which there were many, and just go down that list and think of the possibilities that we could be going with. I think it is a specific season to 1985, and so you’ll see references to that."
Back to the Future came out in ’85: time travel confirmed. Also The Goonies and The Breakfast Club and Teen Wolf…there’s no shortage of places to start.
Harbour described season 1 of the show as being “very Stephen King-y” while season 2 was “more Spielberg-y.” And season 3? “We’re experimenting a lot this season, and we’re taking risks, and I hope that they pay off but they are risks. We’re going into territories we’ve never been to before, and it’s exciting.”
Hopper himself may change as well, or at least, our perspective on him might. “We had a little softer season with Jim in Season 2,” Harbour said, “where he was really working off these fatherly instincts and understanding a responsibility that was larger than himself, and I think one of the things that we missed from Season 1 was this guy who goes into government facilities and punches people in the face. He’s not a doofus, but he’s a bit of a Columbo character.”
"There was a sort of swashbuckling guy that we put on the back burner, so I think we’ll see a little more of the swashbuckling Hopper you may have liked from Season 1. It’s almost like [Season] 1 plus two, equals three. It’s like you have this third character now, who goes back to the swashbuckling guy of Season 1, but also has behind him this adopted daughter who he loves very much, so it’s really cool."
Let’s circle back to Harbour’s Emmy nomination. Speaking to E!, he got very, very personal about how he found out. “I was trying to get my puppy to poop out on the lawn,” he said, shockingly. “I was trying to get my puppy to poop and my girlfriend was watching it, but I don’t like to watch those things. I get so stressed out.”
Now you know.
When asked what fans can expect from Hopper in season 3, Harbour used the words “awesome,” and “risky.”
"This season they just came up with this arc and this idea that’s so original and so new that and so fun. What I can tell you is this, like you see season one you see season two and we’re playing with the same alphabet of these ’80s epics, but we’re kinda throwing out the model again and sort of expanding these characters in ways that you wouldn’t expect them to go in, so that’s what I love about it, is that you have these characters in this show that is clearly working and yet the Duffers are continuously interested in exploring the limits and taking risks and we take a lot of risks this season so there’s a lot of new relationships that get set-up and a lot of new devices and a lot of new cinematic influences."
Stranger Things season 3 will debut…some time in the future. Probably not until 2019.
Next: Photos from the set of Stranger Things—What are Eleven and Max up to in season 3?
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