‘Stranger Things’ Season 4: David Harbour Says ‘Never Again’ to Intense Weight Loss
David Harbour looks noticeably different in Stranger Things Season 4 than he has in the past. In the new season, his character Jim Hopper is imprisoned for months, surviving on moldy bread and gruel. Harbour himself lost a large amount of weight, and the intense body transformation isn’t something he is in a hurry to repeat.
David Harbour lost a lot of weight between seasons 3 and 4 of ‘Stranger Things’
Stranger Things actor David Harbour has previously joked about his “dad bod,” such as in this 2018 interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. However, Harbour transformed himself between seasons 3 and 4 of Stranger Things. “I lost about 80 pounds from season three — I was about 270 [then], and when we shot [season four] I was around 190,” the actor recalled in a recent interview with GQ.
The outlet states that intermittent fasting and Pilates helped Harbour to achieve the new look, but Harbour had a different way of putting things. “It’s just not eating,” he told Page Six in fall 2021. “It’s amazing. You try to do all these different things, the protein and the this and that, and then you just stop eating and you lost weight.”
Harbour joked about preferring to gain weight
On other occasions, Stranger Things star David Harbour has had to gain weight for certain roles, something he much prefers to the alternative. In fact, Harbour had already gained and lost weight for his role in the 2021 film Black Widow. “I had grown the beard and the hair for Stranger Things, and I was like, ‘Let’s use the weight.’ So I started eating even more. I got up to 280 pounds, and I loved it,” Harbour told The New York Times.
Harbour added to Page Six that “putting on weight is my favorite thing. I’m really good at it.” The downside? “It’s really s***ty to take it off, though,” he added. “I think you’ll see, nutritionally, it’s not very good for me, mentally and nutritionally,” he told the outlet.
Harbour doesn’t plan on undergoing such an intense weight loss again
Harbour doesn’t appear to plan on going through another intense weight loss any time soon. In his interview with GQ, the actor stated, “I don’t think I’ll ever do that again,” of his 80-pound weight loss. “I have this Santa Claus movie coming out for Universal in December” — he stated, referencing the upcoming film Violent Night — “and I gained [it all back]. But now, yeah, never again. The prosthetics are too good.”
Luckily for David Harbour, it doesn’t look like he’ll need to drop a bunch of weight when Stranger Things returns with season 5. The season 4 finale saw Hopper finally return to Hawkins, Indiana. There, he reunites with Eleven at the cabin where they used to live. Hopper will hopefully have been able to put some weight back on by the time the series resumes.
All episodes of Stranger Things are currently streaming on Netflix.
