Stranger Things star David Harbour, who plays the lovable Chief Jim Hopper, has said the next season of the Netflix show will be influenced by 1980s comedy flick Fletch.
Advertisement
“The Duffers are so specific each year with the movies,” he recently told Variety about the show’s co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer. “And Fletch is one movie we get to play around and have some fun with this season, which you wouldn’t expect from Stranger Things and you wouldn’t expect from the Spielberg universe and you certainly wouldn’t expect from a darker season.”
Cult 1985 film Fletch follows Irwin ‘Fletch’ Fletcher, a journalist played by Chevy Chase who regularly changes his identity to grab a scoop. And there’s a good chance this Fletch could be mirrored by new character Bruce.
To be played by Starship Troopers star Jake Busey, Bruce is a “journalist for The Hawkins Post, with questionable morals and a sick sense of humour”. Could we see the reporter impersonate residents of the town while chasing up an Upside Down-related story?
Jake Busey
Harbour also revealed a bit more about Hopper’s relationship with Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), with the troubled police chief continuing to be her father figure as the psychic reaches her teens.
“Their relationship is going to get far more complex, because, you know, things happen to girls and boys when they’re 13 and 14,” he said.
“A lot of changes go on in the body and in your social life, and I don’t think he’s going to handle watching her become a woman in front of his eyes very well. That’s a horrifying thing for him — maybe even more so than fighting inter-dimensional monsters.”
However, Harbour also teased happier times are ahead for Hopper, hinting at a possible love interest.
“I think it’d be interesting to see if Hopper has it in him to be vulnerable with a woman and to actually be able to show up in that capacity, like what kind of a man he would be in a relationship if that comes to fruition,” he said.
And it sounds like Harbour would like to see Hopper and Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) become an item.
“There may be other people in the mix in this situation, but I think they’re built for each other and I would love to see them get together,” Harbour revealed.
“From the very beginning, I thought that these are two tortured, messed up, beautiful people who are like puzzle pieces that can’t stand each other but actually need each other.”
But whatever happens in Hopper’s love life, we can expect a few drastic changes from the show’s second season, with Harbour describing upcoming episodes as “so much of a departure and so much of a risk”.
Thomas is Digital editor at BBC Science Focus. Writing about everything from cosmology to anthropology, he specialises in the latest psychology, health and neuroscience discoveries. Thomas has a Masters degree (distinction) in Magazine Journalism from the University of Sheffield and has written for Men’s Health, Vice and Radio Times. He has been shortlisted as the New Digital Talent of the Year at the national magazine Professional Publishers Association (PPA) awards. Also working in academia, Thomas has lectured on the topic of journalism to undergraduate and postgraduate students at The University of Sheffield.
