{"id":1786,"date":"2026-06-10T15:09:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T15:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=1786"},"modified":"2026-06-10T15:09:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T15:09:30","slug":"david-harbour-is-ready-to-talk-about-his-mental-health-lily-allens-west-end-girl-and-the-end-of-stranger-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=1786","title":{"rendered":"David Harbour Is Ready to Talk About His Mental Health, Lily Allen\u2019s \u2018West End Girl\u2019 and the End of \u2018Stranger Things\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tPreparing to play a suburban schlub in HBO\u2019s \u201cDTF St. Louis,\u201d David Harbour decided he needed to transform \u2014 slightly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cI guess it\u2019s just part of my process,\u201d he recalls, \u201cbecause when I looked at it, it wasn\u2019t that much bigger than myself.\u201d He\u2019s referring to the prosthetic belly the production designed so that Harbour, as ASL interpreter Floyd Smernitch, could believably be Midwestern-dad pudgy. Harbour is hardly willowy \u2014 on \u201cStranger Things,\u201d where he played heroic small-town police chief Jim Hopper for five seasons, his weight fluctuated, and sitting before me, he cuts an imposing figure. But Floyd carries himself with a certain dejection, and the belly helped.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a little bit about the landscape of America,\u201d Harbour says. He has just seen the new revival of \u201cDeath of a Salesman,\u201d and recalls that Lee J. Cobb, who originated the role of Willy Loman in 1949, helped to shape the role around his large frame \u2014 his Willy complained that he was an unsuccessful salesman because of his weight. \u201cI\u2019m always thinking of the archetype of the American man and the American dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPerhaps the point was allowing Harbour, now 51, to feel different from himself. \u201cI don\u2019t know that it was extremely necessary, but it helped me put on a bit of a mask. I think the facial hair does too \u2014 it allows me to liberate the true soul beneath,\u201d Harbour says. (As we sit on the patio of an East Village coffee shop near Harbour\u2019s Manhattan home, the actor is affably scruffy in sweatpants and beat-up sneakers.) \u201cI don\u2019t think I could have danced as fun and as free as I did without that belly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd Floyd Smernitch dances plenty. On \u201cDTF St. Louis,\u201d which was a ratings success when it aired this past spring and has placed Harbour in contention for his first Emmy (following two \u201cStranger Things\u201d nominations), Floyd is the openhearted, sweet-natured third point of a vexed love triangle. Presented at first as a murder mystery, with Floyd as victim and his best friend Clark (Jason Bateman) and wife Carol (Linda Cardellini) as prime suspects, the show uses its flashbacks to excavate longing, angst and deep-seated shame in the American suburbs. (The series takes its name from a fictional app that Clark and Floyd use to seek out dates.) Created by \u201cPatriot\u201d writer Steven Conrad, \u201cDTF St. Louis\u201d is strikingly morose and yearning. But it takes flight when Floyd lets go and dances, which he does with loose-limbed giddiness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFloyd\u2019s vulnerability in the midst of this psychosexual maelstrom provides the show\u2019s creative spark. Building the character for Harbour after being brought in deep in the development process, Conrad \u201cthrew everything at David,\u201d the writer-director says. \u201cFloyd is so immensely tender and generous, but he\u2019s going down a dark road. You\u2019ve got to be a certain kind of smart to be hurt as deeply as Floyd is hurt \u2014 he\u2019s got to play Floyd with this emotional intelligence, but he has to be a teddy bear.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis complexity of tone, as well as changing his appearance, was welcome for an actor who is globally famous for playing the stern but loving den father to a group of children as they battle supernatural forces. By the time \u201cStranger Things\u201d ended, Harbour was ready to walk away. \u201cAt a certain point,\u201d he says, \u201cyou kind of run out of story. We had gone as far with these characters as we could, and we were starting to, in a subtle way, repeat beats.\u201d He\u2019d already spent years developing \u201cDTF St. Louis\u201d as a potential next act. \u201cI\u2019m not so worried about maintaining an identity in the industry,\u201d he says, \u201cbut of course it\u2019s on your mind that you have an opportunity. What\u2019s the coolest thing I could make?<\/em>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDTF St. Louis\u201d represents a return, bringing the actor back to the detailed character work he was doing before the Upside Down took over the planet, and a step in a new direction. Harbour\u2019s been working for decades, but he\u2019s never had a part this meaty.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt also reframes the conversation around Harbour. The actor\u2019s long track record of disappearing into character first got swallowed up by unexpected superstardom, then got overshadowed amid a media furor around his alleged conduct on the \u201cStranger Things\u201d set and in his private life. By the time \u201cDTF St. Louis\u201d was close to being unveiled, Harbour\u2019s image had changed once again \u2014 this time, against his will. In October 2025, a month before \u201cStranger Things\u201d started airing its final season, Harbour\u2019s ex-wife, Lily Allen, released the excoriating album \u201cWest End Girl.\u201d A moment that should have been a victory lap became, for an actor who\u2019s long been open about his struggles with bipolar disorder, a frightening mental health emergency. Months later, Harbour is reemerging in the public eye; he\u2019s ready to talk about it all.<\/p>\n

\n\tGetting to that point took some doing, in part because attention, for Harbour, has proven to come with a bitter edge. Prior to their breakup, Allen and Harbour had been a supercouple parasocially adored for their quirks: Harbour appeared to be the smiley, wry actor from the internet\u2019s favorite show, while Allen was the edgy yet lovable singer whose charm lay in her deftness with words. Their 2023 Architectural Digest video touring their Brooklyn townhouse \u2014 from the brief period Harbour left Manhattan, where he lived before and has since \u2014 has more than 9 million views. The couple, who wed in 2020 in Las Vegas, seemed like a package deal, and fans loved the pairing, or what they thought they knew about it.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhich meant \u201cWest End Girl\u201d landed like a grenade. While Allen has said the album uses \u201cartistic license\u201d and noted in an interview, \u201cI don\u2019t think I could say it\u2019s all true,\u201d lyrics about extramarital activity, violations of an agreed-upon arrangement and emotional manipulation set the internet ablaze. (Her case was that an unnamed husband, envious of her newfound success in acting and chafing against the binds of marriage, demeaned her and kept a separate apartment \u2014 the \u201cPussy Palace\u201d \u2014 for sexual encounters that went beyond the no-strings-attached flings she\u2019d allowed.) Perhaps the kindest track on the album is the final one, in which Allen finally takes stock of her own role in the marriage\u2019s dissolution \u2014 and even this relatively evenhanded song concludes, \u201cIt\u2019s not me, it\u2019s you \/ And there was nothing I could do.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was weird,\u201d Harbour says now in his first public comments about the album. \u201cI do believe that it is the privilege of every artist to use their experience to create art, and so I respect her for doing that.\u201d Allen has for her entire career drawn on the details of her life and the lives of loved ones. (Her 2006 debut record features \u201cAlfie,\u201d a song casting her brother, future \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d actor Alfie Allen, as an aimless pot smoker.) Harbour, who wasn\u2019t a name actor until \u201cStranger Things\u201d blew up, has firmer boundaries. \u201cI can\u2019t really say that much more,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause it\u2019s my private life. In spite of the fact that a lot of people don\u2019t allow me a private life \u2014 I value it. And I also value the lives of the people that I interact with privately. I just won\u2019t speak about that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe door is open, I say, for him to push back against any claims Allen has made. He won\u2019t do that, but he has one more thought to share. \u201cStories are complex,\u201d he says, \u201cand that\u2019s why I say I respect her creation of art to channel her experience. It wasn\u2019t my experience.\u201d Besides, he\u2019s no stranger to the transformation of life into art. \u201cMy ability to use my experience comes through in the creation of \u2018DTF,\u2019\u201d he says. Floyd just wants to feel loved and as if he has the capacity to share love. Harbour, putting out into the world a show of uncommon delicacy, can relate. \u201cI want to make things that make people feel safer. My particular talent is in allowing people to feel like they\u2019re not alone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis was a gift Harbour discovered early. Growing up in plummy Westchester County in the 1980s and early 1990s with parents who worked in real estate, he was a complicated kid. \u201cI did have a lot of suppressed emotion, and confused feelings about the world,\u201d he says. In high school, Harbour learned about the concept of subtext \u2014 that people sometimes say one thing, but do another. Playing out this irony onstage in school productions, Harbour was rewarded with laughter and applause. \u201cI was like, \u2018So this<\/em> is the place where I can unlock the weirdest, most wonderful thing in the world, which is the human psyche.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter graduating from Dartmouth \u2014 and spending his summers doing regional theater in Maine \u2014 Harbour plunged into life on the professional stage. \u201cI didn\u2019t really want to go to college,\u201d he says. \u201cI wanted to drop out and become an actor. But I was in a community where it was inconceivable that I would be an actor.\u201d His voice takes on a sarcastic edge. \u201cBeing a lawyer was what I was going to do with my dramatic talents.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile trying to make a go of it as a New York theater actor, Harbour stopped drinking. \u201cI couldn\u2019t get work \u2014 I looked like shit, and I couldn\u2019t show up to auditions. I was just a mess. Then I got sober, and a week later, I got on a soap opera \u2014 my first paying gig. It was sort of a sign: Make your choice<\/em>.\u201d Work picked up, and Harbour began building a career, often playing a supporting character who helps reveal the hypocrisies or delusions of the protagonists. He received a 2005 Tony nomination for playing Nick in \u201cWho\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,\u201d the ultimate theatrical exploration of verbal and emotional games within marriage. In \u201cBrokeback Mountain,\u201d he slyly picks up Jake Gyllenhaal\u2019s Jack Twist, in the midst of Jack\u2019s halfhearted attempt to play it straight, with an offer to go fishing together; in \u201cRevolutionary Road,\u201d he\u2019s the neighbor who sorrowfully witnesses Leonardo DiCaprio\u2019s and Kate Winslet\u2019s characters slowly drive themselves mad.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDTF St. Louis,\u201d which began as an adaptation of a 2017 New Yorker article about an upstate New York murder trial before, in a lengthy development process, becoming an entirely new story, allowed Harbour to dig deeper into the things we think but cannot say. The characters are stripped of any pretense, and come to seem shockingly guileless in their interactions with one another as they make painfully uncool stabs at connection. \u201cIt\u2019s like watching a bunch of adult virgins walking around, saying and doing cringey things,\u201d Bateman tells me, \u201cbecause they don\u2019t know how to be full of shit like most of us teach ourselves how to do.\u201d Harbour\u2019s ability to access vulnerability set the tone for the shoot, Bateman says: \u201cHe\u2019s got this huge heart, and you can see in his eyes his ability to be soft and human. He\u2019s one of those people \u2014 I hope I\u2019m the same \u2014 where we trust people until they give us a reason not to.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite the crime-story framing, the series\u2019 endgame reveals that Floyd and Clark are as tender as the actors playing them. Throughout \u201cDTF St. Louis,\u201d the idea of returning to a childlike state keeps surfacing, including in sequences where Bateman\u2019s and Harbour\u2019s characters sit side by side on a swing set. The series\u2019 ending depicts the impact Floyd made: Carol and Clark both genuinely loved him, even as Floyd\u2019s inner monologue reminded him constantly of his sexual shame and self-loathing. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what my intentions are, how hard I work,\u201d Harbour says, describing Floyd\u2019s mindset. \u201cAt the end of the day, I\u2019m fat, people think I\u2019m disgusting and I ruin things with my desire.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLoving relationships are not without their complexity on \u201cStranger Things\u201d too, as Harbour saw nuance in Hopper\u2019s relationship with Millie Bobby Brown\u2019s Eleven \u2014 an ultrapowerful being, in the form of a child, whom the police chief must protect. \u201cIt\u2019s like trying to heal shared trauma, which my therapist would say that we\u2019re trying to do all the time, whether we acknowledge it or not,\u201d he says. \u201cThose two are perfect interlocking puzzle pieces.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the series finale, which premiered on New Year\u2019s Eve as a stand-alone episode, Eleven sacrifices herself to save the world. Her friends, bereft, spin theories that she may somehow have survived, even though she\u2019s disappeared. Harbour, who\u2019d begun to find \u201cStranger Things\u201d repetitive, loves that Eleven dies at the end. \u201cA lot of people think maybe she\u2019s in Spain or whatever,\u201d he says. \u201cBut right from the very beginning of that series \u2014 we love this little girl, but you really can\u2019t have a little girl in Hawkins, Indiana, with supernatural powers running around. She just cannot exist.\u201d For life within the show to truly return to its status quo, all otherworldly aspects must go away. \u201cRight from the beginning of the series \u2014 you gotta kill her.\u201d It seems clear, I say, that Harbour feels no ambiguity about Eleven\u2019s fate; he agrees. \u201cUntil Netflix needs to raise their subscription rate. Then \u2014 ladies and gentlemen: \u2018Eleven,\u2019 the new series!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tConversations about \u201cStranger Things\u201d feel lighthearted now, but as the show ended, Harbour\u2019s public image took a beating. Around the December holidays, reports of his odd behavior in public alarming passersby in San Diego circulated on Reddit and in the tabloids, and he skipped celebrations for the \u201cStranger Things\u201d finale. I broach the subject, asking if Harbour had needed a tune-up or some time away, before he cuts off my euphemisms with bracing candor. \u201cI had a breakdown,\u201d Harbour says, then punctuates the sentence with a big laugh. \u201cI do suffer from some confusing stuff \u2014 it\u2019s confusing as hell. I think a lot of people have a friend or a brother or a co-worker that deals with mental health stuff, and they\u2019re probably pretty confused when that person gets depressed or gets manic or has an episode.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHarbour feels concern for fans who don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on with him \u2014 he wishes he could understand it himself. But he\u2019s also tired of the way public discussions about mental health play out. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of irresponsible nonsense going on out there,\u201d he says of the conversation around him and people like him, before citing the Scottish disability-awareness campaigner John Davidson, who interrupted this year\u2019s BAFTA Awards by yelling racial slurs. \u201cThat poor guy with Tourette\u2019s and that unfortunate situation \u2014 we\u2019re either going to acknowledge that mental illness is a thing or we\u2019re not. We can stone everyone to death if you want!<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cUnder times of extreme stress, that can cause somewhat erratic behavior, and it\u2019s embarrassing, and I\u2019m ashamed of it. It\u2019s not something I choose, and I wouldn\u2019t wish it on my worst enemy. I do feel like, for some of us, our gifts are inextricably linked with our illnesses. To have a nervous system that reacts to the world in a too-delicate way can allow me to have that moment that I love on the swings with Jason. But it can also force me, in moments of extreme stress, to act a little weird.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe stress that Harbour says triggered him also includes what he calls false reporting. A week after the release of \u201cWest End Girl,\u201d the Daily Mail published a report that Brown, Harbour\u2019s scene partner since her childhood, had \u201cfiled a harassment and bullying claim\u201d against him before production on the final \u201cStranger Things\u201d season began. (Brown later told a reporter, \u201cOf course I felt safe. I mean, we\u2019ve worked together for 10 years.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\n\tHarbour expresses bewilderment, calling the timing of the story \u201ca weird thing\u201d and saying it \u201ccame out in a weird way.\u201d (\u201cWeird\u201d is a word to which he seems to default when unsure of what to say, or when stopping himself from saying something sharper.) Openness and a deep well of emotion, valuable traits for an actor, may not equip him to wage PR warfare as conducted in the social media age. \u201cStraight up, Millie and I are working on several \u2026\u201d He stops himself from revealing their plans. \u201cYou\u2019ll see more of me and Millie \u2014 10 years wasn\u2019t enough. There is a special bond there. I love her. She loves me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cObviously I changed so much from Season 1 to Season 5, and David was there through all of it,\u201d Brown tells Variety<\/em> by email. \u201cOver time, our relationship became much more collaborative creatively. When you work with someone for that many years, we could really push each other emotionally in scenes. Even though the series has ended, there\u2019s still a lot of gratitude. Getting to share that experience with him for so many years is something I\u2019ll always remember and value.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHarbour wants to explain his side of a tabloid story that impugns not just his relationship with a colleague, but his professionalism. But he\u2019s hesitant: \u201cIn this weird world we live in where sound bites will be created, I\u2019m trying to figure out how to say this.\u201d He\u2019s speaking slowly, and in a grave tone. \u201cIt\u2019s a show that went on for 10 years. We worked together for 10 years during her formative teenage years, playing father and daughter. I don\u2019t know if people have families and friends that you spend a lot of time with for 10 years \u2014 you occasionally get in arguments, disagreements.\u201d But the comparison only goes so far, which Harbour acknowledges. \u201cIn families, it\u2019s OK because you\u2019re just in a disagreement and then you come back together. The problem with a billion-dollar show is that there\u2019s just hundreds of people who want to get involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom his perspective, whatever happened was easily resolved \u2014 but working on a megahit can make matters more vexed. \u201cIt\u2019s simple,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was just a simple rupture-and-repair thing that, once we cleared everybody out of the way and talked to each other, we\u2019re fine. Everyone nowadays is very scared of talking about things. People are very scared of being human. It\u2019s unfortunate, because I don\u2019t know how to navigate this weird media world. But it was completely normal, and we adore each other and always have.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUnlike his child co-stars \u2014 who rocketed to fame on their first major gig \u2014 Harbour had an acute awareness of how people\u2019s perceptions of him changed. The weekend that \u201cStranger Things\u201d first dropped on Netflix, he went into the coffee shop where he\u2019d been going ever since he moved to the East Village. \u201cThe people that had served me there for nine years,\u201d he recalls, \u201cwere like, \u2018Can I get your autograph?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe show transformed Harbour into something new \u2014 even as he was still the same actor. There were perks: After Donald Trump was elected to his first term, Harbour gave a rousing acceptance speech on behalf of his cast at the 2017 Screen Actors Guild Awards. \u201cStranger Things\u201d had won the prize for best ensemble, and Harbour made the case for the show as a piece of #Resistance art. (\u201cWe 1983 Midwesterners will repel bullies!\u201d Harbour bellowed as co-star Winona Ryder, by his side, made an expression of amazement that turned into a meme. \u201cWe will shelter freaks and outcasts, those who have no home!\u201d)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ride was fun at first. \u201cYou get free ice cream, or you get Knicks tickets, things like that,\u201d he says. \u201cI love that aspect of it. But after the first six months, the sheen of that recognition starts to wear off a little bit.\u201d The work, which moved more people than Harbour ever dreamed of reaching, came with a gradual loss of his personhood. \u201cI love affecting people, touching people, bringing people joy \u2014 all that stuff is the reason you do it. And then what you have to deal with is the fact that you actually are just an object to people,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can be an object of joy, or you can be like, \u2018I hate that guy.\u2019 And then you\u2019re an object of frustration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHarbour\u2019s feeling better now, and trying his best to move beyond all the weirdness: \u201cYou can like me, not like me, yell about me \u2014 whatever I mean to you. But I\u2019m just going to try to put the best foot forward, and try to put out things, in the midst of all of my difficulties.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMaking art has helped spur him toward reflection too; \u201cWest End Girl\u201d was a burn-it-down catharsis for Harbour\u2019s ex, but the actor works in a different emotional register. He tells me an anecdote about a friend, a Buddhist monk practicing his faith outside San Diego, who had to learn to be at peace in himself before his superiors would allow him to work for<\/em> peace in the world beyond the monastery walls. Harbour can relate: For him, the best work happens when he\u2019s able to step outside the chaos of the everyday. \u201cTo me, art has a quality of gratitude in it,\u201d he says, \u201cwhere we are able to see the dramas \u2014 and also to have the moments where you go, Oh, yeah \u2014 it\u2019s beautiful to be alive and to be able to sit on a swing set with another guy.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s that evocation of childhood again \u2014 one that comes naturally for Harbour. (He\u2019s something of a big kid himself: When he laughs, it\u2019s booming and boisterous, and when he gets excited about something, I see that his rollicking SAG Awards performance wasn\u2019t an act.) At another moment, Harbour cites a line from \u201cDTF St. Louis\u201d about how one of the pains of adulthood is that one doesn\u2019t get to go out for recess anymore. The series, he says, \u201cfeels like two kids at recess playing freeze tag. Being in the unknown with another person, and trusting that the person has your back and is not going to humiliate you \u2014 that is magical.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo preserve their on-screen camaraderie, Harbour and Bateman kept to themselves on set. \u201cWhen you feel that chemistry, you don\u2019t want to mess with it,\u201d Harbour says. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to hang out too much and have lunch too much and talk about it too much. You kind of want to keep it the treasure that it is.\u201d Sets, in Harbour\u2019s view, have grown too busy: \u201cNowadays, people are really interested in BTS \u2014 there\u2019s a lot of people on set making TikToks. Whether you think I\u2019m a weirdo or Jason\u2019s a weirdo for just being quiet, I understand that much better than I understand the bubbliness of a set. We\u2019re trying to capture the moment, and it can be very delicate and fragile, and it can be broken by too much casualness.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe feeling of access that behind-the-scenes footage lends can make viewers feel as though they know what\u2019s going on \u2014 but if there\u2019s one thing Harbour has learned from both \u201cStranger Things\u201d fame and \u201cWest End Girl\u201d scandal, it\u2019s that playing a character in real life is no fun. \u201cI tend to value and understand the nature of privacy,\u201d he says, \u201cand the nature of real friendship.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs \u201cStranger Things\u201d recedes from view, and as he\u2019s able to move past a challenging year, Harbour is experiencing a burst of productivity in his career. He recently shot Courteney Cox\u2019s directorial debut, \u201cEvil Genius,\u201d where he stars opposite Patricia Arquette as a conspirator in a real-life bombing spree. And December brings action-comedy sequel \u201cViolent Night 2,\u201d which, like its 2022 predecessor, casts Harbour as a murderous St. Nick, doling out carnage to those who\u2019ve been naughty. Kristen Bell, joining the franchise as Mrs. Claus (\u201cBut perhaps a slightly different version than we\u2019ve seen before,\u201d she says), tells me that Harbour immerses himself in work even (or especially) when playing outlandish material. \u201cI find David to be very present and very tender,\u201d she says. \u201cHe\u2019s bringing this huge presence, but there is a porousness to it. He wants to interact. He\u2019s not trying to pull off a solo endeavor. He\u2019s trying to make a world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat month will also bring a real test, though more for the industry than for Harbour: \u201cAvengers: Doomsday,\u201d the Christmas-release megasequel that represents Marvel\u2019s first theatrical outing since last year\u2019s \u201cThe Fantastic Four: First Steps.\u201d With Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the latter taking on the new role of villainous Doctor Doom), the film is a Hail Mary attempt to bring a franchise, one that\u2019s diminished since 2019\u2019s \u201cAvengers: Endgame,\u201d back to its past glory. Having appeared as Red Guardian in MCU entries \u201cBlack Widow\u201d (2021) and \u201cThunderbolts\u201d (2025), Harbour is among the new kids on set.<\/p>\n

\n\tHarbour and Florence Pugh, shooting together, witnessed a mythical Marvel sequence \u2014 \u201cthe moment when said character does said thing that you\u2019ve seen before,\u201d he says. (Harbour will not divulge, but I\u2019m guessing Thor will catch his hammer in this film.) \u201cWe were just pinching ourselves that we get a front-row seat to this process.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tA reason why Harbour doesn\u2019t like to shoot the shit on set is that it\u2019s a distraction from what he\u2019s so excited to do. \u201cI feel like a dog at a dog run when I\u2019m doing it, you know?\u201d he says. \u201cAnd when I\u2019m outside of it, I just kind of wander around, and do my laundry occasionally.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother distraction: this interview. Harbour isn\u2019t withholding in conversation, exactly, but he\u2019s made clear, to a degree unusual for an actor doing press, that talking about his work is far less important to him than doing it. At the end of our time together, Harbour cites Philip Seymour Hoffman\u2019s reticence to speak with journalists: \u201cHe just wanted you to see him as a character.\u201d But Harbour\u2019s complicated past year presents one particular conundrum: Perhaps whether he speaks out about it or doesn\u2019t, some portion of the audience will come to a David Harbour performance with preconceptions about the person giving the performance. Does it matter how hard you work to disappear on-screen if some subset of the audience believes they know the man behind the mask?\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe challenge, and my hope, is that I just do such a fucking good job that you \u2014 even if you hate me or you love me \u2014 you lose yourself in that moment and you go, \u2018I\u2019m watching Floyd,\u2019\u201d Harbour says. \u201cThat\u2019s all I really ever want to do. It forces me to try to be earnest in my intent.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEven now, he\u2019s still learning the media ropes, and is speaking haltingly, aware that what he\u2019s saying might look like false modesty. But there\u2019s nothing he can do about that \u2014 all he can do, like Floyd or Jim Hopper or like an actor struggling to make himself heard over the noise, is attempt to be open, even in a world where that quality is rarely rewarded. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to make myself look good or look heroic,\u201d he continues, that booming voice lowering slightly. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to tell you a story that I feel like might be valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018X-Men\u2019 Sabretooth Actor Tyler Mane Reveals Breast Cancer Diagnosis: \u2018It\u2019s Super Rare. Only 1% of Breast Cancers Are Men\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\tStyling: Michael Fisher\/The Wall Group; Grooming: Joanna Ford\/The Wall Group; Look 1 (Denim jacket): Jacket: Brooks Brothers; Sweater: The Elder Statesman; Jeans: Paige; Shoes: Birkenstocks; Look 2 (Black suit): Suit: AYR; Shirt: Percival\t<\/h6>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a wide-ranging Variety cover star, David Harbour breaks his silence on Lily Allen’s ‘West End Girl,’ the ‘Stranger Things 5’ ending and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv"],"yoast_head":"\nDavid Harbour Is Ready to Talk About His Mental Health, Lily Allen\u2019s \u2018West End Girl\u2019 and the End of \u2018Stranger Things\u2019 - Relocation Observer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=1786\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"David Harbour Is Ready to Talk About His Mental Health, Lily Allen\u2019s \u2018West End Girl\u2019 and the End of \u2018Stranger Things\u2019 - 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