*That* Hopper and Joyce ‘Stranger Things’ Scene Was Fully Unscripted

Spoilers about Stranger Things season 4 volumes 1 and 2 are ahead!

Hopper and Joyce finally (F-I-N-A-L-L-Y) acted on years of sexual tension and kissed during Stranger Things season 4, and it was pretty much everything we’ve been hoping for and more.

But the pair then shared another kiss later in the final episodes of the season, which—turns out—was completely improvised by Winona Ryder and David Harbour. The Stranger Things writers’ Twitter account shared this sweet fact (via Us Weekly), simply writing, “This kiss wasn’t scripted, Winona and David added it on the day of filming.”

Hopper and Joyce reunited early in the season, and David opened up to IndieWire about the pressure he felt filming that scene. “It’s an amazing moment. And the problem with amazing moments are that you read them in the script and you’re just like, ‘Fuck.’ You just feel the pressure. Here it is: He’s been away, he feels like he’s killed her. He’s in such despair, and then lo and behold, his miracle, his knight in shining armor who saves him is this woman that he cares so much for.”

He added that they shot the scene “a bunch of different ways” and that “initially, there were some that we did where she’d run over to me and I just embraced her [right there and then]. We did about 10 takes of it, and then I was like, ‘You know what I think it is, man? I just think he’s so in survival mode, I don’t even think he thinks she’s real.’ So when she comes over to him, there’s this moment where he kind of stares, pulls her away from him and looks at her, and then embraces her again. That’s when we could go into the smile.”

Honestly, they nailed it.

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