Over the primary 16 years of David Harbour’s appearing profession, he constructed a profitable resume of Broadway theater (in productions like “The Invention of Love,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and “The Coast of Utopia”) and supporting roles in TV (“Pan Am,” “The Newsroom”) and movie (“Quantum of Solace,” “State of Play,” “The Equalizer”).
“I actually loved being No. 7 on a name sheet of, like, a Denzel Washington motion film, and likewise being leads in performs on the Public Theater in New York,” he says. “It was a beautiful life, a improbable life, a one-bedroom-rental-in-the-East-Village life.”
Then, at 41, Harbour was solid in “Stranger Issues” as Hawkins, Indiana, police chief Jim Hopper — the one grownup male lead (reverse Winona Ryder’s Joyce Byers) on a present populated nearly totally with younger folks. His life has by no means been the identical. The present turned a right away international blockbuster on Netflix, catapulting Harbour to top-of-the-call-sheet standing in a matter of weeks. Over its five-season run of the Netflix blockbuster collection, Harbour has additionally headlined a reboot of “Hellboy” in 2019, performed a kick-ass Santa in 2022’s “Violent Night time,” and joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe because the Crimson Guardian in 2021’s “Black Widow,” 2025’s “Thunderbolts*” and 2026’s “Avengers: Doomsday.”
Since ending manufacturing on the ultimate season of “Stranger Issues” in 2024, Harbour has already shot a brand new restricted collection for HBO, the darkish comedy “DTF St. Louis” with Jason Bateman and Linda Cardellini, and a sequel to “Violent Night time,” each anticipated in 2026. In late September, he spoke with Selection whereas in manufacturing on the latter, to debate the top of “Stranger Issues” and the creators of the present, Matt and Ross Duffer, for the journal’s Oct. 15 cowl story. (The interview predates the report that co-star Millie Bobby Brown filed a harassment grievance towards Harbour previous to capturing Season 5, in addition to the announcement after which launch of his ex-wife Lily Allen’s new album, “West Finish Lady.”)
Harbour shared the impression “Stranger Issues” has had on his life; how the present’s large success has modified it, for higher and for worse; and the way his character has advanced over its 5 seasons.
Ross Duffer and David Harbour on the set of “Stranger Issues 5,” with Matt Duffer, Millie Bobby Brown and Winona Ryder within the background
Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix
You’ve mentioned earlier than that, going into Season 1, you noticed Hopper as a make-or-break function for you. Did you perceive then that the present had the potential to grow to be what it’s now?
No. You’d know higher than I when it comes to the enterprise fashions of how one thing like Netflix operates. However after we began the present, it was the autumn of 2015, and the mannequin for Netflix authentic collection was like “Home of Playing cards” and “Orange is the New Black.” I figured it might be sort of a sci-fi present, which some folks would actually take pleasure in, others, you realize, it wouldn’t be their factor. However the common attraction on the type of zeitgeist that it has grow to be, I by no means imagined.
What has “Stranger Issues” completed on your profession and on your life?
Lots of people know me now, and it gave me a fan base of a sure kind. So, profession clever, it simply opened an amazing quantity of doorways. I imply, I’m now in what occurs after “Stranger Issues,” when it comes to strolling by these doorways. I’ve this new HBO present popping out in January, me and Jason Bateman, and all this different stuff within the pipe now, in order that’s extra the place my focus is on proper now.
Whereas, had you requested me that query seven years in the past? It simply ripped aside the entire conception of what I might be. I received to a sure level in my life once I was 35 — I actually loved being quantity seven on a name sheet of, like, a Denzel Washington motion film, and likewise being leads in performs on the Public Theater in New York. It was a beautiful life, a improbable life, a one-bedroom-rental-in-the-East-Village life, and “Stranger Issues” modified that total life in some ways. The one factor that it hasn’t modified is my intent, and I feel my intent has all the time been to inform lovely, bizarre tales that open folks up. That’s been the identical pre-“Stranger Issues” and after “Stranger Issues,” however every little thing else has modified.
Why do you assume the present has endured for as long as an enormous hit? What do you assume is on the core of its attraction?
You in all probability know that higher than I do. What would you say it’s?
I’ve been asking that query of lots of people, and one factor that individuals have actually pointed to is that, due to the breadth of the ensemble, there’s a personality that mainly everybody can determine with — and it’s a narrative about people who find themselves outsiders preventing again.
Effectively, the outsiders preventing again has shifted through the years. I did discover that as seasons go on, it’s extra curious about empathy. Vecna has grow to be crucial, just like the monster himself is turning into extra human, and we’re supposed to grasp and have emotions for the monster. Whereas in Season 1, it was actually scrappy outsiders who have been taking down an organization, proper? It has been an fascinating transition when it comes to what they’re centered on, the way you elaborate that story.
I feel, at its finest, it actually hits all of the beats of character and story transferring ahead on the identical tempo, which is a tough factor for a script to do. Normally, scripts give attention to character or they give attention to plot. “Stranger Issues” will do each of them concurrently in a really subtle method. The opposite factor is, we love “Star Wars,” proper? We love “Lord of the Rings.” I feel what “Stranger Issues” is making an attempt to do is, as a substitute of rebooting “Star Wars” or “Lord of the Rings,” they’re taking the archetypes or the tropes — or the phrases and the letters, let’s say, and creating new sentences out of them. Hopper is Han Solo, is Indiana Jones, is Gandalf the Grey. There are these archetype tropes that simply reside in our unconscious cinematic lexicon and we love them. “Stranger Issues” simply reinvents them with Eleven, Hopper, Max. It’s not afraid to play these actually robust energy chords.
What’s the expertise like of being directed by the Duffer brothers when the present began?
After we began, I feel they have been a lot greener, and the present additionally had a lot much less at stake. We have been the forgotten present that first season. I don’t even know the way a lot cash they spent on the present, nevertheless it was not quite a bit, and we didn’t have any executives down there. No person was taking a look at what we’re doing. I feel that they seemed to me and Winona in loads of methods to assist them extra with the larger dialogue heavy scenes. I imply, not that they didn’t have good stuff daily, however I keep in mind it being a little bit extra freewheeling.
How has that advanced over the past decade?
As their aesthetic received extra what they needed it to be, they began getting much more particular about digicam strikes and photographs and construction and cuts and issues like that. Because the present grew in recognition, and because the cash grew and the stakes grew, I feel we received extra exact. They’ve all the time been very beneficiant with me. They’ve all the time actually appreciated me as performer, actually appreciated what I delivered to the character, and needed me to type of information him. Over time earlier than every season, we’d discuss in regards to the sort of path that we needed Hopper to go to.
You recognize, the issue with TV is that you just’re all the time Gilligan on the island within the pink shirt and the bucket hat for 10 seasons. I get bored and I needed Hopper to be totally different. I needed to point out totally different colours of him: the Season 1 man to the Season 2 very protecting, overbearing father, to the Season 3 “Magnum PI” ’80s detective, to the Season 4 gaunt, brutal, resurrected warrior, to this Season 5 — I don’t know what he’s this season. However we have been very collaborative on the place we might take him. They’re tremendous vibrant guys, and so they actually know how you can inform a narrative.
Lastly, as one of many solely adults with loads of expertise on the present, I needed to ask what it’s been prefer to be on the within of it turning into such a phenomenon?
It’s going to be onerous for me to essentially communicate overtly about any of this, due to what folks do these days whenever you attempt to talk about one thing that I really feel could be very three dimensional and really complicated.
You achieve one thing and also you lose one thing. You recognize, Hopper doesn’t smoke within the present anymore. That could be a direct results of recognition. As a result of your viewers does get so giant, you are attempting to proceed to attraction to the largeness of that viewers, and enormous audiences require smooth edges. Which is an fascinating conundrum that you just cope with in pop music and popular culture and all kinds of common leisure. So, for me, the freedoms of that first season, after we have been simply carving it out and nobody anticipated something, versus the pressures that we have been beneath on the fifth season, you realize, I would favor the freedoms of that first season. And but, I love the eye, and I love capturing the widest viewers attainable, and I love transferring the most individuals with what you’re doing.
That is simply one thing that leisure struggles with. I suppose the lengthy and the in need of it’s simply that you just achieve one thing — clearly, clearly — and also you additionally keep in mind and miss these days after we have been all naive and had all the liberty on the earth as a result of nobody anticipated something of us.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
