Stranger Things 4 Adjusts Hopper's Look Because of David Harbour's Role in Black Widow

David Harbour has a pivotal character in Stranger Things since the beginning of the series, and despite breaking everyone's hearts with what happened in the end of season 3, it has been revealed that Hopper lives and would be back for season 4. However, the series would have to adjust to his look as recently, Harbour scored yet another epic character as the Red Guardian in Black Widow.

Well, it's safe to say there is another thing common with the two characters of Harbour aside from being cool as he is, both are found in Russia. After Hopper's sacrifice in Season 3 of Stranger Things, he turned up in an underground facility in Russia where he seems to be captured by an enemy. As for his role in Black Widow, the Red Guardian or Alexi Shostakov, well, as his name indicates, is a Russian.

Credit: Marvel Studios

To be able to reconcile both his characters who clearly spent some time in some prison in Russia, Harbour shared in an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live that he has to have different looks on both shows for viewers to be able to distinguish who is who easier, he said, "I had started growing out my hair, but then I got cast in this other thing to play a Russian prisoner. I had this long hair and this beard and I was big and I thought, 'I can't be the same guy with long hair and a beard in the same prison."

Harbour even revealed that he secretly took pictures on the set of Black Widow and sent it to the Duffer Brothers, the creators of Stranger Things, to make sure that what his character in the series would wear and feel nothing like his role as the Red Guardian.

Harbour added, "I kept sending these photos and finally at the end I had all this hair and beard and we had planned to do it this way, but I was like, 'Guys we can't do this, I'm coming out with this Marvel movie, I can't have the beard and the hair.' So we came up with a whole different look for him, we had him shave his head."

So that explains the bald and clean-shaven Hopper in the teaser of Stranger Things 4. What some haircut could do for a character, right? Harbour really is a man of talent and creativity.

Black Widow arrives in theaters on July 9, 2021, and Stranger Things 4 is expected to be back sometime in 2022.

Related: Black Widow: David Harbour Shares New Photo with Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh