'Stranger Things' Season 4 to reveal different Hopper, says David Harbour

During a guest appearance at the Comic-Con Liverpool on March 7, David Harbour talked about how "Stranger Things" Season 4 is going to approach Chief Jim Hopper's story following his near-death experience in Season 3.

Harbour took the time to address fans' questions about his character's fate during the panel discussion. He acknowledged that "Hopper as a character had to die" to make a huge sacrifice. Then, he gets reborn as a different person. The actor teased that Hopper "will come back as a different human being with a different perspective."

The actor compared his character to Gandalf in "Lord of the Rings" who died as Gandalf the Grey and resurrected as Gandalf the White. He said the same transformation happens to Hopper in "Stranger Things" Season 4.

"That's the exciting thing moving into season 4 and whatever might be beyond. We're gonna see the Hopper that we love, but in a different way," Harbour said, in a video taken from the event and posted on YouTube by Bingo_Banjo.

During the same panel discussion, the actor shared that fans will see a bit of Hopper's backstory in "Stranger Things" Season 4. He said the upcoming season will give viewers "a big, huge reveal about Hopper's back story" that viewers have "sort of sensed in certain ways" but the show has not really told.

"I'm so excited about revealing this aspect of the character. It's one of the things I've known since the first frame of the first shot and we haven't expressed it yet [but] finally I get to express it in a big way, and it's my favourite thing about him," Harbour added, and expressed his excitement for fans to see Hopper's transformation and his backstory in "Stranger Things" Season 4.

The teaser for "Stranger Things" Season 4 confirmed that Hopper is alive albeit he is imprisoned in Russia. How and why he is there remains a mystery, and one that the installment needs to answer. Netflix has yet to announce a return date for the series but the cast already reunited for their first table read last week to officially kick off the start of production.