David Harbour talks Stranger Things Season 3, his sweet dance moves

The third season of STRANGER THINGS might not be making its Netflix debut until 2019, but that's not going to stop the press from asking David Harbour for information about what we can expect from the show's forthocming installment. Ever since the close of STRANGER THINGS Season 2, Harbour has been hard at work while contributing to the making of Neil Marshall's HELLBOY reboot in which David stars as "Big Red" himself. I'll  bet you anything that, while going through his daily and detailed makeup process for the Hellboy role, Harbour has been afforded plenty of time to think about his STRANGER THINGS character, Jim Hopper.

Recently, after wrapping on the production of HELLBOY, David Harbour sat down with Variety to discuss the future of STRANGER THINGS, as well as the hilarious meme that went viral of Jim Hopper shakin' his groove thang.

When asked about the pressure of returning for the highly-anticipated second season of STRANGER THINGS, Harbour told Variety that, "We all felt a lot of pressure going in, at least I certainly did. You want it to be better. I’m not often proud of the work that I do, but I was so proud of Season 1 that I was almost like, ‘oh s—‘ going into this season. How are we going to top that?

There are horror stories like “True Detective.” The risks that the Duffers took, they had the potential for that sort of thing. This could be really bad. But I think we all hunkered down and we have such a good dynamic, it’s so creative that environment. They wrote some good scripts. Every scene and every day, we just tried to make it sing. I feel like we achieved it.

Now going into Season 3, we’re getting more comfortable. We’re getting better. And I’ve never felt that. The tapestry just seems so broad. A lot of people tell me when you’re on a show for a while, you get bored with it. and I don’t foresee that with this. The tapestry just seems to get larger and more creative. So I’m excited to see where we go next year."

As their conversation continued, David was asked if he could reveal any hints related to what will happen in STRANGER THINGS Season 3. He then replied by admitting, "I have absolutely no idea, and also I’m not allowed to talk to you about anything. Because I’m always the person that gets in trouble. But they haven’t told me anything. I think I’ll be in it though, that’s all I know."

While it would have been sweet to receive some early info pertaining to what's next for the show's forthcoming season, I'm not surprised at all by David's reluctance to share any information at this time. However, just because there's no official details just yet, that doesn't mean that Harbour can't talk about what he'd like to see for the future of STRANGER THINGS.

Observe …

"I’ve been pretty vocal about how I love the dynamic between Joyce and Hopper, which I don’t feel like we got a lot of time to explore in Season 2. I just love that dynamic of these two lost people. I equate it to Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway in “Chinatown” or Indiana Jones and Marion in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” These great, throwback, they hate each other but love each other kind of tropes. It’s done so sophisticatedly by the Duffers, and Winona is really game for it, too. We love playing scenes with each other. I would love more stuff with her.

That’s a feasible one — and then there’s stuff that I don’t think is feasible, but I do think the internet knows my love for Joe Keery. I would love to see a Hopper and Steve get-together, but I seriously doubt that’s going to happen. I’d love to work with Gaten. I want to get into the backstory of Hopper more. When Eleven goes into the basement, she sees a bunch of boxes, one of which says “Hawkins Lab.” “Dad.” “Vietnam.” “New York.” There’s a lot of story we can get into around Hopper’s time as a cop in New York, Hopper’s time in Vietnam. I would love to see more of that, but we have a ton of great characters, so I don’t know how much they’ll be able to do."

STRANGER THINGS: The Harper Files spinoff y'all! I'm only kidding, but hey, why the hell not, right? It doesn't even have to be a full season, maybe just a four-episode mini-series. Netflix could release it a a lead-up to the third season. If done with style, a presentation like that could serve as a way of getting everyone super amped for what's to come for one of TV's stand-out characters of the past two years. Also, a Hopper and Steve team-up sounds amazing! Make it happen, Duffer Brothers!

Next, Harbour was asked about meme that went viral of Jim Hopper swingin' his hips to the sweet sounds of Jim Croce. David replied by sharing,  "I thought when we shot that scene, I thought Jim Croce would have a huge resurgence. All the kids are going to be reintroduced to Jim Croce, who I f—ing love. But the f—ing silly little dance that I do? I thought that was going to be overlooked. But unfortunately Jim Croce has not had the tremendous resurgence that I wanted him to, but my dance GIF has become a huge thing. It’s as funny to me as it is to anyone else. Let’s all enjoy him dancing!"

Finally, when asked if he could confirm the 2019 release date for STRANGER THINGS Season 3, David replied, "I’m not the authority on any of this. But if you use logic, our first season came out July 15. Our second season came out October 27. Theoretically, if we keep on the same timeline, what’s our next release date? I guess it would be January or February 2019. But I don’t know. I would love for it to be as soon as possible. We just want to make them good, and good takes time. It all goes into shaping a really beautiful product, and that’s the most important thing."

You can catch David Harbour next in HELLBOY which is set for a January 11, 2019 release.