David Harbour Is Finally Ready for Stranger Things to End

Stranger Things is finally coming to an end with its fifth season, as showrunners the Duffer brothers announced last year – and it looks like some of the cast is ready to say goodbye too.

Specifically, star David Harbour, who’s played Jim Hopper since Season 1, said he’s ready for Netflix’s hit series to end during an interview with Discussing Film, promoting his new movie for the streamer, We Have a Ghost.

“What’s funny is when I started the show, I never, ever wanted it to end,” he said. “That’s why I love the show. I think it’s a great show, even if I wasn’t in it. Now we’re almost nine years from filming the first season, and I think it is time for it to end. But it is, of course, very bittersweet. You know, there’s a sadness there. But also, we’ve all grown up.”

“It is time for us to leave that nest and try other things and different projects,” he went on. “And to let the Duffer brothers try different things as well. I mean, those guys are so talented. I want to see what they come up with next. So it is bittersweet, but it’s definitely time.”

The Duffer brothers wrote a letter to fans announcing that Season 5 would be Stranger Things’ last in February 2022, saying they always planned for the series to run four or five seasons. Once they got further, however, they realized the story was too big to wrap up in just four installments.

“As we sat down to do [Season] 4, we knew that we had to start giving some of these big answers,” Ross Duffer told IGN in a digital cover story. “And the minute we started giving some of these big answers, it meant that the end had to inevitably be in sight.”

Hopper – and Harbour himself – have had quite the journey on Stranger Things, especially after Hopper was seemingly killed off at the end of Season 3. But he returned in Russia in Season 4, a super-sized installment that was the first to be released in two parts last summer.

Harbour also talked about the end in IGN’s digital cover, saying he and the Duffers have discussed Hopper’s arc from the beginning.

“They’re very responsible with that storytelling, and I’m really excited to sort of bring the whole story to an end so you can go back and watch the whole thing and see what the arc of the thematics are,” he said at the time. “Because I think it’s really a big, big canvas, but it’s told very responsibly and very well once you see the end.”

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.