Featured Image Credit: Netflix
Topics: Stranger Things, TV and Film, David Harbour
Jake Massey
David Harbour has revealed that he lost more than five-and-a-half stone ahead of the latest season of Stranger Things. Watch him speak about the show here:
The second volume of the fourth series dropped on Netflix at the start of the month, and it's all a lot of people want to talk about at the moment.
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Harbour's fan favourite, Jim Hopper, looks like a different fella in the new series and the actor said he had to lose a huge amount of weight to reflect the toll of prison life on his character.
"You know at the end of season three I was about 270 pounds, and then when we came into this season I was 190," the 47-year-old said on BBC Breakfast yesterday (5 July).
He added that it was a big challenge, and his top tip wasn't something that people trying to lose weight really want to hear.
He said: "It's not easy, it's a lot of not eating when you lose that much weight, and being hungry.
"That's the secret, if you're curious about the diet secret, it's just not eating food."
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Oh, great (fortunately, he did explain in a previous interview that pilates and intermittent fasting played a big part).
Anyway, after all that not eating, the actor then had to go and use facial prosthetics to make his mush fuller again when shooting flashback scenes.
In a post on Instagram, Harbour explained he suggested to the Duffer brothers - the writers of the series - that at the end of season three, they should shoot the flashbacks because of the issues there would be with continuity after him losing so much weight.
The actor continued: "But they hadn't been written yet. Luckily, we had the miraculous @barriegower come in and give me the 'fuller hopper' face.
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"I hate prosthetics, but Barry/team made it as painless as possible. The results speak for themselves."
Harbour also used the post to 'shoutout' the head of the makeup department, Amy Forsythe, for 'augmenting, overseeing and being all around generous with the process'.
He continued: "And the talented hair chief @sarahhindsgaul who sat down with our gulag 'barber' and tested and tested and made sure we could shave my real hair cleanly and theatrically efficiently to catch on camera.
"We only had one shot at it."
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Harbour said he has since 'gained' it all back and he has no plans to undergo such a taxing transformation again.
"The prosthetics are too good," he told GQ Hyped.