00:04Hey everybody, Josh Wigler with Hollywood Reporter here, very excited to be talking
00:08to this man, your Emmy nominee, David Harbour of Stranger Things. David, how are you doing?
00:13I'm good, man, I'm good. Welcome to Comic Con. Welcome to Comic Con. It's very loud,
00:18lots of people. You know, it's good and it's bad, right? It's so amazing, the fans are so amazing,
00:25it's really fun, and then it's also wildly exhausting. I might fall asleep in the middle
00:30of this interview, but I hope you won't. It's not you, it's just all the selfies.
00:35So, congratulations again, Emmy nomination for Stranger Things. That's very exciting.
00:39It was very exciting, yes. Where were you when you heard the news?
00:42I was asleep, as per Hopper, but also, it was funny, two days before, I found out the nominations
00:51were coming out on Thursday. I forget these things, and I found out they were coming out
00:54on Thursday. So, two days before, I went on all these websites, including Hollywood Reporter.
01:00That's us. And there were a bunch of pundits on your
01:02site as well, who were predicting who would get nominated. And I was nowhere on any of those
01:08lists. So, you were like, I can sleep in tomorrow.
01:10No, yes. And I thought, well, I don't really care about awards in that way. It's so selfish.
01:15Like, I love what I do, and it's such an honor and a privilege to get to do what I
01:18do. And
01:19I was like, but I am going to have one bad day on Thursday, when, like, they come out,
01:23and I'm not ready. And then, so, I was like, just, David, just sleep in. Don't look at social
01:28media. Get through your day, and you'll be fine. And then, I woke up to a frantic call
01:32from my manager saying, you've been nominated. And I was like, what? And I freaked out, and
01:38then, and then I put my phone down, and I went out and had a cup of coffee on the
01:42deck, and
01:43just, like, took it in. And it was a really nice moment. And then, I went, got on a plane,
01:47so I went through airport security, which is another great way to spend a celebration, taking
01:51your shoes off, and being humiliated. Hands up, feet on the yellow.
01:55Right. So, yeah.
01:56The red carpet.
01:56Yeah, exactly.
01:57A different kind of treatment.
01:58The red carpet.
01:59Uh, 18 nominations total for Stranger Things.
02:02Yeah. 19, actually. You know, there was a, there's a VR nomination, which they don't
02:05really, we have a virtual reality thing, but 19 nominations.
02:08That's pretty amazing.
02:09It's pretty amazing.
02:10The first season, the show, everybody on the set must be so excited, everyone in the cast,
02:14and the crew. Was there a moment while making that first season of Stranger Things that
02:18anybody had any conception of, we've got something, like, really, really, really special here?
02:23Uh, not a single moment. There was actually the opposite of that moment.
02:27There was moments, like, around episode four and five, where we were like, this is terrible.
02:31And we're all never, and we're gonna be the first, first show from Netflix that won't get
02:36a second season. Like, at that point, every show had gotten a second season, and we were like,
02:40wow, this is terrible. It's gonna be awful. Um, but then, of course, when it came out,
02:44when I saw it all cut together, I myself am such a fan of the show, and I'm so critical
02:50of everything
02:50I do, and I'm not very proud of a lot of things I do, and I was so proud of
02:55this, and I thought it
02:55was so special. But the fact that audience is connected with it as well is rare, because sometimes
03:01you like something, but you don't know if it'll translate into other people. And the fact that it
03:05translated so big was, like, such a surprise, and it was also just really gratifying, because we're so
03:11proud of the work that we put into it, and we're so excited to continue to work on these characters,
03:15and continue to go deeper. So, like, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it really is a dream come true.
03:21What is it about Hopper that you connect to most? I mean, he goes on such a ride in that
03:26first season,
03:27where he starts off in bed, you know, after a really rough night, clearly, and he's having a really
03:33rough reacclimation into the day, and it just gets worse across the season. What is it about that
03:38character that you really connected with? First of all, I love, uh, you know, I love the classically
03:43defined difficult leading man, but I also like the fact that he's someone who, especially in the
03:47beginning, like, you don't necessarily root for him, you know? I mean, I was reminded of, like,
03:52Walter Matthau in Pelham 1, 2, 3, where you, like, you set up Robert Shaw, who's this villain,
03:58or you set up this problem that's, like, so big and scary and strong, and then you meet a schlub
04:04who's, like, gonna, like, Walter Matthau, or me, who's, like, gonna deal with this problem,
04:07and you're like, there is no way that schlub is gonna be able to take out, like, uh, you know,
04:12a missing child, and a monster, and all this stuff, so that's one of the gratifying things,
04:17and one of the fun things about playing him was that we had all the episodes, so I sort of
04:22knew
04:22where he was gonna end up, so in the beginning, I could really structure him to be a real jerk,
04:27because I knew where he would go, so I really did want people to have, if not mixed feelings,
04:31like, actually bad feelings about him, and then have them go on the journey, and really find that
04:36thing of, like, oh, no, this guy's more than this, so, um, that was quite, you know, that's probably
04:42my favorite part of playing him, is that he is so complicated, and also one other thing is, like,
04:48I really like the fact of the unsentimentality of the death of his daughter, the earnestness,
04:54but the unsentimentality, like, it's very important to me that sometimes in our culture,
04:58we're very concerned with, like, feeling better, like, taking care of our emotions, and I really
05:02like the fact that with Hopper, there's this one thing that he will never get over, and even as he
05:08saves Will, and he finds his life again, you still know that that lingers somewhere, that there are
05:12certain things that happen to us where we do not recover from, and I like the stark reality of that,
05:20it's almost like, you know, there's like a quote from John Ruskin, who's like an art critic,
05:25uh, who talks about looking at the ocean, and like, just staring at it and realizing that it is black
05:31and unending, and like, just that kind of stark reality of a situation, I feel like is very close
05:38to Hopper, so I love that about him. Well, that was great too, because that backstory really starts
05:43to unfold in the finale of season one, which already has so much business to take care of, you're
05:49plunging into the upside down, you're going on the mission to save Will Byers, you're going to find
05:54poor Barb somewhere in there as well, and yet the show still takes time to dig into Hop's past,
06:01and show what it was like when he was a father, was that gratifying to be able to not only
06:05do sort
06:06of like the action horror side of it in that final episode, but also really a very personal,
06:11dramatic story as well? Yeah, exactly, we shot it very differently as well, it was our last day of
06:16shooting all those flashbacks, and I did, I really liked, because it sort of fits perfectly,
06:22you're right that we do go off on the tangent, and there's a lot in the episode, we have to
06:25stick
06:25with the story, but we do go off in this way, and, but it's very related to what's happening
06:30in the action, like, you can't really see him save Will without understanding why he's so viciously
06:36trying to give him CPR, and so you start to see a little bit of that, that history, and it's,
06:42it's very gratifying to play, and it's very gratifying to see it cut together. Once upon a time,
06:45I spoke with Noah Schnapp about that scene, about the, about the, about the CPR scene,
06:50he said it was very gross on his end. Oh no, the child abuse scene, I know, oh man, that
06:55poor kid.
06:56Just to set that up, there was, you know, he has all this, he's finding Will, he's in the upside
07:00down,
07:00he's got all the gunk in his mouth, and you have to do CPR to save him. Yeah. What was
07:05practically
07:06involved in that scene? Well, at one point, we did have a dummy, so for some of my close-ups,
07:10and for Up High,
07:11I could really go to town on this dummy, because, you know, he, it's like 30 pressures, and then two
07:18breaths, and 30, and so I could go to town on this dummy, but then we had to put Noah
07:21in for a couple
07:22of them when we moved the camera a little bit to his face, and there were a couple days where
07:26God
07:26bless the strength of Noah Schnapp, because I, yeah, I did forget it was not the dummy for a couple
07:33times,
07:33and that poor child, um, that poor child, I really, I really revived him, or practically killed him.
07:40He's a strong little dude, though. God bless him. Yeah. So he's, so he's back in, in Hawkins. Yeah.
07:47Season two, season two is coming out in October. Yeah, October 27th. Halloween-themed Stranger
07:51Things season two. Seems like it. I don't know what I'm supposed to reveal, but yes, it seems like
07:56the children are in costumes, walking around trick-or-treating. Yes. So it seems appropriate,
08:00at least in terms of the timing. What can you say about season two in terms of it being
08:04an evolution of where you guys were in season one? How does it push the ball forward? I mean,
08:09the, the greatest thing sort of about season two, and I went into the editing room and watched a
08:14little bit like a week ago, and the first five minutes, you're not going to know you're watching
08:19Stranger Things. You're going to literally be checking the thing and being like, is this,
08:24did I put on like some, did I, and then something happens in the last part of that five minutes,
08:29when you realize that we sort of open up the world in a whole fresh new way. And we introduce
08:34some new concepts and it's things that the fans had mentioned and been talking about. And I don't want
08:39to bring up specifically what those are, but we delve into questions that you guys had about the past
08:46histories of these people. And it really opens up the world. And then the whole world is able to get
08:51bigger
08:52and sort of just bigger and darker and weirder. And, and, uh, I think it's going to be, I think
09:01people are really going to be blown away. Uh, the fact that there's even a second season,
09:06clearly the show was a huge hit. Yeah. Uh, but I think a lot of people reached the end of
09:09that first
09:10season. Like, is this going to be an anthology? Yeah. It's just going to be a done in one type
09:14of
09:14story. Were you surprised at all when conversations started happening about season two, or did you see
09:19that this world could be expanded pretty immediately? I mean, it was funny to be honest,
09:23like the Duffers, when they started the conception of this project, thought that it would be one
09:27season. And then perhaps we would flash forward, um, and see the kids grown up and see they're
09:33dealing with it almost like Stephen King's it or something. Right. But as, even as we were developing
09:39the scripts and Netflix said to them, and very rightly, they were like, people are going to fall in
09:44love with these characters. Like we don't want to just abandon them after one season. And so we do
09:49have a complete story in season one, but we sort of added some little extra things to open-end it.
09:55And I must say that there are mixed feelings out there. There are some people that wanted it to be
09:59an anthology and wanted these characters to be themselves, but the amount of depth and complexity
10:04that we're allowed to go into now with these people and the amount of different journeys that
10:08they're able to take over the season is like you, we would have missed out on a lot had we
10:13not been
10:13able to take these characters. And I think that we, the Duffers and all the actors included,
10:18just fell so hard in love with these people that we didn't want to let them go. So, uh,
10:24speaking of the kids, like everyone truly did fall in love with these kids. They're fantastic.
10:29Everyone loved them. Millie Bobby Brown also nominated for an Emmy this year. Yeah.
10:33Have you guys, are you going through the experience together? How are you guys processing this?
10:36We, we just like, it came out just like a week ago or something, right? Or a week.
10:40Yeah. So we just texted, like we've been off. She's shooting something. I'm in the middle of something.
10:45And so we just texted. She's so, she's a sweet little thing. She was like, congratulations,
10:52like smiley face, smiley face. And I said, congratulations to you, little hotshot.
10:57Um, so we've just been texting a little bit, but we haven't really gone into the whole big
11:03Emmy thing yet. Right. I think that's going to start a little later.
11:06You didn't like send her a basket of eggos. Oh no. A fruit plate or something. I got to do
11:12that.
11:12All right. I gotta, I gotta go buy some eggos. Good, good, good deal. That's good. No,
11:17that's guy. I appreciate that. Thank you. Absolutely. Well guys, thanks so much for,
11:21for watching, for, for seeing this man right here. Very excited for you. Congratulations.
11:25Thanks, man. Again, for all of our Emmy coverage, go to THR.com. Take care, everybody.
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