Conversations with David Harbour of STRANGER THINGS

Q&A with David Harbour of STRANGER THINGS. Moderated by John Sellers, Thrillist.

Tony nominated actor David Harbour has gained a reputation as one of the most versatile actors around, consistently delivering compelling performances on film, television and stage. Harbour can currently be seen in Netflix’s breakout series Stranger Things as Police Chief Jim Hopper. This supernatural period drama was written and directed by The Duffer Brothers, and executive produced by Shawn Levy. Also starring Winona Ryder, Stranger Things premiered the summer of 2016 to wide critical and audience acclaim, and was renewed for a second season, which begins filming later this year.

In film, he was most recently seen in David Ayer’s DC blockbuster Suicide Squad, with Will Smith, Jared Leto, and Margot Robbie. Before that, he appeared in Scott Cooper’s Black Mass opposite Johnny Depp, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Joel Edgerton. The film follows the true story of Whitey Bulger, the most infamous violent criminal in the history of South Boston. Harbour portrayed corrupt FBI agent John Morris, who allows Whitey to evade law enforcement. Harbour’s additional film credits include The Equalizer, opposite Denzel Washington, A Walk Among Tombstones, co-starring Liam Neeson, Parkland, End of Watch, Revolutionary Road, Thin Ice, Brokeback Mountain, The Green Hornet, Quantum of Solace, W.E. and Between Us.

On the small screen, Harbour was recently seen in WGN America’s 1940’s series Manhattan as rival scientist Reed Akley. The series was created and written by Sam Shaw (Masters of Sex) and directed by Emmy Award-winning director Thomas Schlamme (The West Wing). Other TV credits include Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, NBC’s State of Affairs, Rake, and Pan Am.

A Tony nominee for the revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Harbour’s other theatre credits include Fifth of July, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Merchant of Venice, Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love, and The Coast of Utopia at Lincoln Center Theater. He was supposed to perform the role of Achilles in the Public Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park production of Troilus and Cressida in the Summer of 2016, but had to pull out of the production during previews due to injury. Harbour graduated from Dartmouth College with a double-major in drama and Italian. He currently resides in New York.