David Harbour: “I was always the black sheep weirdo”

It’s late June when NME zooms with David Harbour, a fortnight before Hollywood’s actors are called on strike. Sitting on camera, alongside a poster for his new movie Gran Turismo, the Stranger Things star is in jovial mood. You feel like he’d tell you anything, if you asked. Dressed in black, looking like a Texas ranger with his wild bushy beard, Harbour has made it to London where his wife – British pop star and actress Lily Allen – is currently on stage in a production of Martin McDonagh’s Olivier-winning play The Pillowman.

This is his first chance to see Allen in the play; for the past few weeks, while she’s been on stage, he’s been back home in New York looking after Ethel and Marnie, Allen’s two daughters from marriage to ex-husband Sam Cooper. He even scored tickets to a Taylor Swift concert, which probably makes him just about the best stepdad there is. How did he manage that? “It was very difficult,” he grins. So does this mean we can safely say David Harbour is a Swiftie? “Yeah,” he growls, before busting out with a big, booming laugh.

At 48, a decade older than Allen, Harbour has – to use a motoring analogy – been on the ride of his life these past few years. Acting since the late 1990s, when he made his screen debut in soap As The World Turns, alongside a robust career in theatre, he’s gradually scaled the Hollywood climbing frame. Support roles came in movies ranging from Brokeback Mountain and the Madonna-directed period piece W.E. to blockbusters like James Bond movie Quantum Of Solace (a corrupt CIA section chief) and Suicide Squad (a Washington suit). Maybe you’d notice him, maybe not.

Then, in 2016, he appeared as Chief Of Police Jim Hopper in the 1980s-set Netflix sci-fi series Stranger Things and everything changed. Two Emmy nominations followed and Harbour, in his early forties, became a bona fide star. “I never thought that I would headline movies. I just thought if you’re not doing that, by the time you’re 35, you’re just not going to do that. So there’s something really nice about starting this new chapter [as] a leading man, much later in life when it’s completely unexpected and sort of feels a bit like gravy, as opposed to something that you think you’re gonna do.”

“I never thought that I would headline movies”

That Hollywood “gravy” had started to look very tasty indeed, as Harbour went from playing the devilish anti-hero in 2019 comic book reboot Hellboy to the Red Guardian in Marvel’s Black Widow. Better yet, he saw Stranger Things become a TV phenomenon, second only to Succession perhaps in ‘have you seen it?’ water-cooler conversations all over the world.

“Secret Cinema [the immersive theatre production] did a Stranger Things experience – in 2019, I think, before the pandemic,” he recalls. “The guy who played Hopper wanted to talk to me as the character.” Just another surreal moment in his increasingly surreal life.

After years of watching other actors elevated to A-list levels of fame, becoming a part of something with intense fandom has been a curious experience, he admits. “Harrison Ford [was once asked by interviewer David Letterman] about the figures, these [toy] action figures… And he said, ‘I have no relationship [with them], because Indiana Jones is a character in and of himself and independent of me.’ And I do feel somewhat that Stranger Things and Hopper exist in that same way.”

Maybe such detachment is the sensible, grown-up way of dealing with being thrown into a media maelstrom. The other might just be to get on with your career, and keep it ticking over. In Gran Turismo, this visceral blockbuster comes inspired by a true story built around the hit video game franchise. In 2008, Nissan’s Darren Cox – here renamed Danny Moore and played by Orlando Bloom – set up the GT Academy. The best players of race simulator Gran Turismo were sought out to see if they could transfer their skills to Silverstone and beyond.

The film focuses on British talent Jann Mardenborough (played by Archie Madekwe), who truly lived the dream as he went from gamer to racer. “In this case… you’re not making a video game movie,” says Harbour. “You’re making a movie that incorporates the game. And I think that the theme is very interesting on a subtle level, where you have a guy immersed in a virtual world, who’s coming out of it. And it’s the game that brings him out into the real world. I think it’s kind of a counter to what we’re experiencing now with a lot of technology. And I like that thematic.”

“I like video games, much to the detriment of my relationships”

So was Harbour a gamer in his time? “Oh, god, yeah, I like video games, much to the detriment of my relationships,” he says. “I never got into Gran Turismo because I’m not really a simulator guy. I’m much more an RPG type guy, building characters, doing that whole thing. Although it does seem like the modern iterations of Gran Turismo have a certain build component to them, where you get different shocks or different brakes or whatever. But it’s never really been my thing, racing games.”

In the movie, Harbour plays Jack Salter, a fictional ex-racing driver who now is a chief engineer. He’s tasked by Moore to train the GT Academy competitors – and ultimately Jann – as they go from consoles to chicanes. Sceptical about Moore’s hairbrained scheme, one he feels is fraught with danger, Salter is a flinty figure, still haunted by the demons of his career after an accident on the infamous German track, the Nürburgring. The film’s director Neill Blomkamp (District 9) purrs like a V8 engine when Harbour’s name comes up. “I just love his performance in the film. He’s a real creative force, very dedicated to the film and very professional in the way that he approaches how he brought the character to life.”

As much as the film is wish-fulfilment fantasy, Harbour grounds it all, especially through Jack’s tough-love relationship with Jann. “I think that he really sees Jann for what he is,” says Harbour. “A lot of the executives want this version where he’s going to achieve the impossible. Even Orlando’s character, there’s a kind of false hope. I think Jack’s able to really dial in to who he is, what his inadequacies are and his strengths and his ambitions, and really take him there. And I think that’s important in mentorship, to not lie to someone or be overly positive or overly optimistic. I think that’s a very powerful quality in mentorship.”

Harbour knows what he’s talking about here. “It’s something I’ve had throughout the years and I find it much more profound than someone who just on the surface says ‘we believe in you’ but isn’t willing to show up and do the hard work with you.” Born in White Plains, New York, he’s had his own mentors over the years. He was raised by parents Kenneth and Nancy, who both forged careers in real estate, although that was never on the cards for Harbour. “I was always the black sheep weirdo. And I was like, ‘I cannot do this suburban business thing.’”

“I couldn’t do the suburban business thing”

It was during high school that Harbour met his first inspirational figure. “[I had] an English teacher who was pretty profound in terms of unlocking my understanding of art, literature, character and metaphor, which I feel like is in a lot of my work, what I try to do.” Later, he went to Dartmouth College to study drama, although it was not paired with Italian, as the internet might have you believe. “No, that’s Wikipedia!” he chuckles. “That’s the internet continuing to lie to you! It’s so funny. It does come from somewhere. Because I did study Latin. So I know a little bit of Latin but modern Italian, no. Not so. I wish I could speak it. But I can’t!”

After college, Harbour came to New York, where he met two acting teachers, one he still works regularly with as an acting coach. “They were very, very hard on me in various ways, which is refreshing because a lot of times, the only times people are hard on you is when they’re critical of you, in a critique, and they’re not willing to go the distance. And I do find that people that are hard on you, who are willing to show up and work with you, are very profound. And so I’m very drawn to that in people.”

Harbour began auditioning for off-Broadway theatre roles initially. “For such a large chunk of my adult life, I was a single guy in the East Village in New York, living this kind of artist’s life,” he says. But it was also a rough time. A regular on the city’s underground poker scene, he also struggled with alcoholism (“I was very angry and a horrible human being to be around”, he told Sam Jones on the Off Camera Show). He got sober aged 24. A year later he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. By his own admission, he was very self-destructive.

“Not that I would have been a killer,” he explains, “but I do find that there’s a quote in that movie Capote, with Phil Hoffman, where he says that he and that murderer are similar people… it’s just one went out the front door, and one went out the back door. He became a writer. And this other became a murderer. And I do think there were times in my life where this same impulse… the same seed that lives inside us can be destructive and creative, but it has to be something.”

“British pop stars are a part of my karma!”

There can be no doubt that his relationship with Allen has led to stability in his life. They married in September 2020, in Las Vegas, in a wedding officiated by an Elvis impersonator, which is surely one of the coolest celebrity facts you’ll ever hear. Given Gran Turismo features Spice Girl, Geri Halliwell – she plays Jann’s mother and is “a lovely, cool person”, says Harbour – what is it about him and British pop stars? “It’s just… a part of my karma!” he guffaws.

When it comes to Allen (whose father Keith and brother Alfie are actors), Harbour isn’t certain he’d ever want to perform on stage or screen with her. Dragging too much drama into their lives might not be such a good idea. “As talented as I think she is and as supportive as I want to be with her, I don’t necessarily know that I’m her leading man. There’s plenty of other good-looking talented men out there that she can act with.” Maybe they could record an album together. I’d like to hear that, I say. “You’re the only one… but OK!” he quips.

Right now, like many other actors, Harbour is in a holding pattern. When we speak, it’s several weeks into the writers’ strike that began in May. “I’m currently not working at all,” he underlines. Among his projects left in limbo is Marvel’s Thunderbolts, a movie about a titular team of supervillains that gives Harbour the chance to reprise his Black Widow character Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian. Among others, the film will pair him with Harrison Ford, “one of my idols”, who will feature as Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, a character previously played by the late William Hurt.

A self-confessed socialist, Harbour is obviously supportive of all the reasons behind the strike, as artists set out for fairer pay, among other issues. For the moment, it also means Stranger Things’ fifth season is on hold, despite the recent announcement by Netflix that The Terminator star Linda Hamilton will be joining the cast in an undisclosed role. “It surprised me when they announced that,” admits Harbour, “because I know that this writers’ strike has not come to a deal yet. And I think they’re committed to not shooting until they do reach a deal.”

When that will be, given the writers have been joined by the actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA, is another matter. Harbour admits he feels antsy when he’s not working and his need for self-expression is stirring up inside him. But one thing is for sure: whenever it comes, it will be the last season for Stranger Things. “There’s something about pouring yourself into the final season,” he says, “that sprint to the finish line, that is exciting and almost euphoric to me.” And after that? He’s ready for a new challenge. “The next chapter will be exciting.”

‘Gran Turismo’ is in cinemas now

This interview was conducted before the ongoing Hollywood strikes

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