Why David Harbour hates method acting: “It doesn’t produce good work”
Here’s a pop quiz for you, the answer to which will probably test not just how much you sit in front of a screen but also your powers of recollection: name something else David Harbour has been in other than Stranger Things.
Did you have to think for a while? Did you eventually say something like “Oh, wait, he was in that Father Christmas film where he beats people up,” but not the name of the film, which was 2022’s Violent Night? Then you’ve got work to do.
It isn’t Harbour’s fault that Stranger Things has become so world-encompassing and such a juggernaut that he has basically become synonymous with Chief Jim Hopper of Hawkins, Indiana, and he plays the character so perfectly that, much like the rest of the cast, you can’t really imagine him being anyone else. But he has done plenty of other things aside from going in and out of the Upside Down over the years, including that festive film.
For one, he has been involved in the world of superheroes a fair bit, most recently winning some acclaim for his role as ‘Red Guardian’ in the Marvel movie Thunderbolts, which came and went this year without too much attention being paid to it, possibly because of MCU overkill and possibly because the premise was too similar to Suicide Squad. He also stepped into Hellboy’s shoes back in 2019 for a reboot nobody really asked for, and had the ignominy of being nominated for a Golden Raspberry award for it.
Perhaps because of his size and general demeanour, Harbour definitely seems to either get cast for, or gravitate toward, roles that require a certain amount of punching people in the face, and a look back at his filmography certainly reflects that. But he has been involved in TV and theatre for some 20 years now, much of which has been spent in far more sensitive characters than those who just light up a cigar after throwing someone through a wall.
For a start, he was nominated for a Tony award in 2005 for his work on ‘middle class couples get drunk and argue a lot’ Broadway play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and he has taken on several major Shakespearean productions over the years, aside from countless TV spots.
His eventual breakthrough role on Stranger Things would see him pick up a Golden Globe for ‘Best Supporting Actor’, so Harbour is evidently someone with acting chops and the experience to talk about it with some authority, but he is also not someone who holds any stock in the idea of acting as some incredibly serious pursuit that requires method or complete immersion.
He told GQ: “When I was younger – it’s so embarrassing – but I remember playing that famous Scottish King (Hamlet) and being like, ‘I’m gonna kill a cat’ or something: ‘I’m gonna go murder something to know what it feels like to murder.’ I didn’t actually do it, obviously. Not only is that stuff silly, it’s dangerous, and it actually doesn’t produce good work.”
Not even a triple ‘Best Actor’ Oscar winner can sway Harbour on this perception; when asked about Daniel Day-Lewis and his famously stringent commitment to completely inhabiting any roles he takes on, Harbour said: “He’s an extraordinary actor who I’m captivated and fascinated by. (But) when he explains his process, it sounds like nonsense to me.”
Probably unlikely to catch the pair of them having a pint and a friendly chat about who did the best Hamlet then, especially as Day-Lewis famously walked off stage during a 1989 production where he got overwhelmed by the intensity of the ‘father’s ghost’ bit and never did theatre again.
Harbour, of course, is bang in the midst of being everywhere at the moment, thanks to the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, and is also going to be in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday movie, along with seemingly every other major actor in Hollywood. And good news, if you liked that Christmas movie he did – Violent Night 2 is on the way!
