David Harbour thought Stranger Things would be canceled immediately

Stranger Things has become one of Netflix’s biggest hits, but there was a time when those involved with the project didn’t have a lot of faith in it. That includes David Harbour, who plays Hawkins’ Chief of Police Jim Hooper. The actor spoke with BBC’s The One Show and revealed that he thought Stranger Things would be canceled after its first season.

Halfway through I remember my hair person coming up to me, like about episode four we were shooting, and she was like, ‘I don’t think it’s gonna work.’

David Harbour continued: “By the time we finished, we wrapped, I thought we wouldn’t get a second season, we’d be the first Netflix show kind of ever to never get a second season. We thought no one would watch it, it was going to be a disaster.” Upon its release in 2016, Stranger Things would become a breakout hit for the streaming service, putting David Harbour’s fears of being canceled to rest.

The fifth and final season of Stranger Things will find David Harbour bringing Jim Hooper’s story to a close, and while the actor once thought that the character should die, he’s since changed his mind. “As he’s being resurrected as the man he wants to become, it would almost be nicer to keep him alive,” Harbour said. “Let’s see what they choose.” The Duffer Brothers have stated that the writer’s room for Stranger Things 5 will soon begin. “We’re going to take a little vacation in July,” Ross Duffer said. “And then we’re going to come back. I know that the writer’s room is going to start in that first week of August.” Matt Duffer added that the fifth and final season will likely be shorter than the fourth season. “The only reason we don’t expect to be as long as [season 4], if you look at it, it’s almost a two-hour ramp up before our kids really get drawn into a supernatural mystery,” Matt said. “You get to know them, you get to see them in their lives, they’re struggling with adapting to high school and so forth, Steve’s trying to find a date, all of that. None of that is obviously going to be occurring [in season 5].“