David Harbour Teases Post-Strike Return to ‘Stranger Things’: “We’re Going to Work as Hard and as Fast as We Possibly Can”

With the actors strike now in the rearview mirror, Hollywood productions will be ramping up once again in the coming weeks — including for the highly anticipated final season of Stranger Things.

Star David Harbour confirmed that he will soon be returning to set, acknowledging that in the 24 hours since the strike ended he’s been “getting a lot of calls” about getting his schedule set.

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“I just love that show and I love that [Jim Hopper] character so much; it’s the last season and I’m looking forward to just diving in with my whole heart into this guy that, certainly career wise, has made a huge difference in my life but personally, has been the character in film and TV who I’ve loved the most, that I’ve fallen in love with,” Harbour told The Hollywood Reporter at Thursday night’s BoxLunch Holiday Gala. “I’m excited to give him the finale that I’ve wanted for him since we started. I just love it so much, I can’t wait to pour my heart into it.

“I feel like a horse getting ready and the gates are about to open, there’s all of this drive and all this passion to do it,” he continued. “We have a while to shoot and to edit but we’re going to work as hard and as fast as we possibly can to get it to people because I know they love the show as much as we do and I can’t wait for them to see what’s up next, it’s really exciting stuff. The scripts are great.”

Production on the fifth and final season of Stranger Things was delayed starting in May amid the writers strike but now has the green light. Harbour admitted that the strike has been “really tough for me. I think that there’s a piece of me psychically that processes the world through my work, through acting; I love it so much and I haven’t been able to do it and it’s been driving me a little bit nuts.”

Harbour was recognized at BoxLunch’s Los Angeles event as this year’s Giving Ambassador, teaming up with the company and Feeding America to raise awareness about hunger in the United States.

Other stars were also basking in post-strike glow on the red carpet, with Joel McHale noting he’s “very happy but if we didn’t get the stuff that we wanted and needed then I think it would have continued. So I’m very happy and I’m glad that they fought really hard and it was very necessary and thank god.” The actor said he will be returning to work on his show Animal Control in about two weeks, and knows of other productions returning as soon as Monday.

The Boys star Erin Moriarty added that post-strike “my visceral response is almost one that’s like ‘Oh my god, I get to work again,’ and then the underlying real satisfaction steps into it which is like ‘Oh my god, look at what we just did,’ and look at the ripple effect it had, external to our own singular strike.”

She continued, “It was difficult and it was painful and it was simultaneously a very special moment in time because it’s very easy to become dejected and I think to observe a collective effort to refuse to be dejected, that’s kind of the antidote to so many systemic issues that we face.”

Simu Liu Teyonah Parris, Erin Moriarty, Anika Noni Rose, David Dastmalchian, Xochitl Gomez, Val Chmerkovskiy, Emma Caulfield Ford, Seth Green, Emily Swallow, Daniel Logan and Adam Shankman were also in attendance at the event, as BoxLunch spotlighted the work of four Feeding America-network localized food banks by presenting an award and donating $25,000 to each to use in their local communities.

Harbour also presented Feeding America with a $100,000 donation to Chief marketing and digital Eeperience officer Jennifer Polk, then surprised the crowd by doubling the donation with $100,000 of his personal funds.

Ryan Fish contributed to this report.

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