Stranger Things Season 4: David Harbour Compares Hopper to Gandalf

David Harbour is currently starring as Red Guardian in Marvel's Black Widow, which was finally released this week after over a year of delays. During the star's press tour for the movie, he's been getting some questions about his other highly-anticipated project, the fourth season of Stranger Things. During a recent chat with Collider, Harbour compared his character, Chief Jim Hopper, to Lord of the Rings' Gandalf.

"I can talk about Hopper. I guess I say this about a lot of seasons, but it's my favorite season, in the sense that he's at his purest, he's at his most vulnerable, in a sense. He's been, as we've seen, he's in this Russian prison, so we get to reinvent him in a sense. He gets to have a rebirth from what he had become, and we'd always sort of planned this almost resurrection of you have Gandalf dies, Gandalf the Grey re-emerge, and I'm really interested in this resurgence of him. We get to explore a lot of threads in his life that have merely been hinted at that we get to see a lot more of. And there's some real surprises that you know nothing about that will start to come out in this and play big as the series goes on," Harbour shared.

"[Season 4] is really my favorite season," Harbour added. "I just love it. The scripts always get better and these guys, they started out, and Season One is so tight and good and intimate in a certain way, it's so good. And these guys go in different directions, of which the fans have multiple takes on, but I will say, the writing continues to be of its particular, specific genre, whatever they're doing each season is just extraordinary. And this, again, we top it. Like I feel it's a big, beautiful season. I can't wait for people to see it."

As for Black Widow, the movie is "Certified Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes with an 80% critics score and 92% audience score. ComicBook.com gave the movie a 4.5 out of 5 and called it "a triumphant theatrical return for Marvel." In addition to Harbour, the movie stars Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Rachel Weisz as Melina Vostokoff, O. T. Fagbenle as Mason, and Ray Winstone as Dreykov.

Netflix has yet to announce a release date for the fourth season of Stranger Things. Black Widow is currently playing in theaters and is available to buy on Disney+ Premier Access.