Hopper was always going to get “the Gandalf resurrection” on Stranger Things

Sheriff Hopper looked real dead at the end of Stranger Things season 3, but star David Harbour knew he was always coming back, and coming back…changed.

Stranger Things season 4 is getting back on track after a long break thanks to COVID-19, which has been messing up production schedules all year. Showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer had already filmed enough before the shutdown to release a teaser trailer, showing our beloved Sheriff Jim Hopper (David Harbour) on a Russian chain gang:

In releasing that trailer, the Duffer Brothers got ahead of speculation and just confirmed that Hopper was, in fact, alive, even though we’d seen him get blown up at the end of season 3, and other characters — mainly his surrogate daughter Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) — grapple with his death. How did he survive, and how did he end up in Siberia? Those are questions for the season itself.

Speaking to Games Radar, Harbour confirmed that he knew his character was coming back, even though he played dumb in the press. “I just wanted to preserve the fantasy for everyone,” he said. “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’m very close to the Duffer brothers, and I know where the story’s going, and I’ve known from the get-go. And I think that’s been the great thing about this story. In terms of Stranger Things, you’ll be able to look back at season one and see a lot of things that happen further down the line that relate to that."

Interesting to hear that Hopper’s death and resurrection may have been planned since the beginning. “We were always interested in that idea of the Gandalf resurrection – Gandalf the Grey who fights the Balrog and then becomes Gandalf the White,” Harbour continued. “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.”

For the non-Lord of the Rings fans out there, Gandalf is killed while fighting a Balrog in The Fellowship of the Ring, but returns in The Two Towers, back from the dead. He’s still Gandalf, but he’s changed, with more powers and greater wisdom.

Obviously Hopper won’t be magically resurrected…although then again, freaky alternate dimension travel could be involved, which is basically the sci-fi version of the same thing. As for how he’ll be different, Eleven and the gang will have to get him out of that prison camp first.

Weirdly, Russia seems to be at the center of a lot of Harbour’s roles lately. He’s also playing Red Guardian, the Soviet answer to Captain America, in Disney’s upcoming Black Widow.

“One of the things was to be a Russian, as opposed to being an American in a Russian prison, which is a very different experience,” Harbour said. “I think that Hopper is very much the American, as they talk about it at the end of season 3. And in that way, you know, the American mentality of the ‘80s ‘cowboy’ American that Hopper is in Russia, it’s a very different dynamic than a Russian dissident or a Russian former KGB or whatever being ostracised.”

Expect Stranger Things season 4 to come out sometime next year. As for Black Widow, it’s currently set for release on November 6, but things may be shifting.

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