“Stranger Things” could have been a whole different show if creators Matt and Ross Duffer had gotten their original casting choice for Chief Jim Hopper — and it’s not Josh Brolin.
During an interview with “Happy Sad Confused” host Josh Horowitz posted Monday, the Duffers are asked to reveal who their “first choice” was for Hopper on the Netflix series. David Harbour himself was the one to ask them in a pre-recorded question shared by Horowitz.
“Hello, Duffer Brothers,” Harbour said. “I would like to know the casting process of Hopper. I’m pretty sure I was second choice, and I don’t know who I was second choice to — maybe I was third choice? But would you please answer the question of how I came to be cast as Chief Hopper, and who had to say no to allow me to do that wonderful, incredible role.”
Horowitz then guessed the first-pick actor to play Hawkins’ Chief of Police was Josh Brolin, based on the Duffers’ clue that it was one of Harbour’s friends.
“No, no, no, no, no no,” Matt Duffer said. “No, it was Billy Crudup, which is a very different– like, everything happens for a reason, right? So it’s like, once it kind of clicks into place. But yeah, Billy Crudup passed. I don’t think he was doing much TV at the time.”
While Crudup is now starring on Apple TV’s “The Morning Show” alongside Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, he wasn’t a TV actor at the time — much to Harbour’s benefit.
“And then David just, honestly, he just came in and one of our casting directors thought he could be great for the role,” Ross Duffer said. “He came and read and he just did one take. We weren’t even there, we just saw the tape, and it was just so clear, instantly: this is Hopper. And we just cast him right then and there.”
Harbour played Chief Jim Hopper on all five seasons of the now-ended “Stranger Things,” starring alongside Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers and Millie Bobby Brown as his adoptive daughter, Eleven.
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