David Harbour underwent a dramatic physical transformation for season 4 of Stranger Things, surprising viewers with his new look following the complex storyline of his character, being locked up in a Soviet prison for a long period of time.
The 47-year-old actor recently opened up about the process, revealing to British GQ that he lost a significant amount of weight to achieve the look for the fan-favorite character of the Netflix series.
“I lost about 80 pounds from season 3. I was about 270, and when we shot [season 4] I was around 190,” David explained, adding that he did intermittent fasting and Pilates to lose that amount of weight in just eight months. However he says he would never repeat the difficult process for such a big transformation.
“I don’t think I’ll ever do that again,” he confessed.“I have this Santa Claus movie [Violent Night] coming out for Universal in December and I gained [it all back]. But now, yeah, never again. The prosthetics are too good.”
The Hollywood star also revealed how he mentally prepared to portray his character, as most of his scenes were filmed on location at an ex-Nazi prison in Lithuania, and his biggest fear came true as he portrayed Jim Hopper.
“I often have dreams of going to prison,” he admitted. “I know Freud has some kind of interpretation of that. But [whether it’s] artistically, or relationship-wise, or a lack of funds. Imprisonment is always my biggest fear.”