David Harbour reflects on ‘Stranger Things’: “You gain something and you lose something”
David Harbour has reflected on his time in Stranger Things, ruminating on what was gained and lost when the series rose in popularity.
In a newly released interview with Variety conducted at the end of September, the actor, who plays Hawkins, Indiana, police chief Jim Hopper, and the adoptive father of Eleven, played by Millie Bobby Brown, looked back on almost a decade of filming.
In the lead-up to the release of the fifth and final season, the actor was asked what it feels like to be part of such a global phenomenon.
He was quick to admit that the issue was “complex” and “three-dimensional”, after which he stated: “You gain something and you lose something. You know, Hopper doesn’t smoke in the show anymore. That is a direct result of popularity.”
Harbour is not naive about how huge the cult following of Stranger Things really is: “Because your audience does get so large, you are trying to continue to appeal to the largeness of that audience, and large audiences require soft edges. Which is an interesting conundrum that you deal with in pop music and pop culture and all sorts of popular entertainment.”
This means that there are greater expectations placed upon the final seasons: “So, for me, the freedoms of that first season, when we were just carving it out and no one expected anything, as opposed to the pressures that we were under on the fifth season, you know, I would prefer the freedoms of that first season.”
Harbour added that there were still huge benefits to being part of such a huge success: “I love the attention, and I love capturing the widest audience possible, and I love moving the most people with what you’re doing.”
He finished, “This is just something that entertainment struggles with. I guess the long and the short of it is just that you gain something — obviously, clearly — and you also remember and miss those days when we were all naive and had all the freedom in the world because no one expected anything of us.”
Notably, this interview was recorded before it came to light that Millie Bobby Brown reportedly accused Stranger Things co-star David Harbour of “bullying and harassing” her on set.
However, they have since happily shared a red carpet together. Plus, sources close to the matter suggest everything has been resolved.
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