After three seasons, it is hard to image anyone but David Harbour playing local cop Jim Hopper in Stranger Things, but according to the star there was another actor in line to play the Hawkins Chief of Police…he just doesn’t know who. Over the years a number of big movie and TV roles have been played actors who were originally not, for one reason or another, cast in the role, but have gone on to be truly iconic characters, all the way from Marty McFly to Indiana Jones, and it looks like Stranger Things has created its own What If…? moment as Harbour made the reveal that Jim Hopper could have literally been a different character.
Speaking during the recent New York Comic Con event, the Black Widow star said that he believes the role of Hopper on Stranger Things was almost given to an actor bigger than him, and he said that he has often joked with the show’s creators about who the mystery movie star could be, even throwing a name into the mix.
“And I joke with the Duffer Brothers,” Harbour said. “There was one person that was offered the role of Hopper before me, who was apparently a big movie star, and occasionally when I am in such a self hatred mood that I Google myself, ScreenRant’s got all these articles that are always like, occasionally they’ll be like, ‘Ewan McGregor was off-,’ but I still don’t know who the actual celebrity — if anybody knows, let me know so I can thank them for passing.”
Harbour has appeared in every episode of Stranger Things up to the climax of season three, where it was assumed for a very short time that he had met an heroic end in a bid to save the residents of Hawkins from the terrors of the Mind-flayer and the Upside-Down. In three seasons the character has come a long way from the chain-smoking, alcoholic, bullish police chief investigating Will Byers’ disappearance, to being a father figure to Eleven and eventually an all out action hero in the last season, which have seen him become a firm fan favorite in the process.
While there are no doubt some fans who would love to see the Stranger Things bandwagon roll on indefinitely, Harbour was clear that he doesn’t want the show to become the next Lost and end up at a point it has nowhere to go so starts to create storylines and arcs that it cannot fulfill in a logical and satisfying way. According to Harbour, the fourth season will have four storylines, all interwoven into the events and mythology created in the first seasons, and although the season contains some of the biggest and most ambitious ideas yet, he believes that the loose ends begin to tie up by the end.
There has been a number of suggestions that the flagship show could have one more season to come after this, which will bring an end to the saga, but fans of the show shouldn’t be too disheartened as according to Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, there are already spin-off series in the works and a lot more to come from the world of Stranger Things. This news comes to us from CBR.