Stranger Things might be one of Netflix’s most popular original shows ever, but one of its stars initially thought it wouldn’t even get a second series.
David Harbour, who has played Jim Hopper in all four seasons of the supernatural drama, has admitted he thought the show would be a “disaster” during filming of the first series.
David made the revelation during an interview on The One Show on Monday as he recalled a conversation he’d had with a hair stylist who was also working on the show.
Asked if he thought it would be such a huge success, David replied: “Not at all.”
He continued: “I remember when we were shooting the first season. We were down in Atlanta, Netflix had given us a budget of about $20 and we thought…
“Halfway through, I remember my hair person coming up to me, about episode four we were shooting, and she said, ‘I don’t think it’s going to work’.
“So by the time we wrapped, I thought we wouldn’t get a second season. We’d be the first Netflix show ever to never get a second season. We thought no one would watch it, it was going to be a disaster.”
David isn’t the only cast member who had reservations about the show’s chances of success.
Natalia Dyer, who plays Nancy Wheeler, admitted the cast wasn’t prepared for it to be so successful in a separate interview with The Independent in 2020.
“Nobody knew if it was going to get picked up again after we finished filming season one,” she told the newspaper.
“There was really an air of, ‘We might never see each other again’.”
“No one had any idea how successful the show would be. There was no preparation – there couldn’t have been, even if we’d known. It was a surprising and overwhelming shock. Then it was like, ‘OK, this is how it is now’.”
Stranger Things seasons 1-4 are available to stream now on Netflix.