How much weight did David Harbour lose before Stranger Things season 4?

It’s time for another Stranger Things binge, fans! The final two episodes of season 4 are officially here and they are definitely super-sized and action-packed. For fear of missing out, many diehard followers of the Netflix Original pulled an all-nighter to start watching season 4 volume 2, and I’m sure everything that’s gone down in episodes 8 and 9 is enough to keep anyone awake!

Spoilers for Stranger Things season 4 ahead.

Now don’t worry, if you haven’t finished Stranger Things season 4 volume 2 yet, we’re not here to get into major spoilers. We just want to talk about the actor who plays Jim Hopper, David Harbour, and how fit he looks in this new season. The 47-year-old star has been very open in the past about his self-proclaimed dad bod, but has gotten into shape for various roles.

Now, when watching Stranger Things season 4 volume 2, fans have noticed that Harbour looks pretty slim. Especially with his shirt off. There’s a scene in the beginning of episode 9 where Hop and Joyce (Winona Ryder) are changing their clothes while in Russia, and we see Hopper without a shirt on. This has sparked fans to wonder about his weight loss journey. Luckily for us, he’s talked about it!

David Harbour weight loss

While speaking to the New York Times in 2021 (via Hollywood Life), Harbour talked about gaining weight for Black Widow and then losing weight for the Marvel movie’s flashback scenes. According to the actor, he lost 60 pounds for the movie, which came out in 2021. He explained:

"“I said to the first A.D. [assistant director], ‘Listen, we have to shoot the flashback stuff at the end, so that by the time we shoot the flashback, I’ll lose the weight and I’ll be thin.’ And he was like, ‘You’ll never be thin.'” I was like, ‘Yes I will, man.’ And I lost like 60 lbs. through the shooting. The first stuff we shot was at the prison, so that belly that’s coming at you, that’s all real belly. And then as we shot, I started to lose weight. I was just hungry a lot of the shoot.”"

According to Page Six, part of the reason Harbour lost this weight was also because of his role in Stranger Things season 4. Of course, we all know that his character Hopper is stuck in a Russian prison for most of the season, not eating the best food and doing a lot of manual labor.

UPDATE 7/21/2022: David Harbour shared a weight loss transformation post on Instagram, revealing he actually lost over 75 pounds.

I think most fans would agree that David Harbour looks great no matter what size.

Be sure to stream all nine episodes of Stranger Things season 4 right now on Netflix and keep up with us at Netflix Life for all of our updates on the upcoming Stranger Things season 5.