The May issue is now available in PDF format, and is downloadable for free by clicking here.
This guy is not the Hopper from Stranger Things . He is awake, eloquent and, above all, he is slim and hunky. You are on a diet called intermittent fasting. "Basically, it's about being hungry all day and chewing on a piece of cardboard every once in a while," says David Harbor (New York, 1975) in a sad joking tone. He has had to lose weight because in the fourth season of the Netflix series Hopper is supposed to have spent some time in a Russian prison undergoing penalties. “I love to eat without worrying, I like food and people with a good appetite, people who live life. So I'm partly ashamed of this. I'm ashamed to have to lose weight. ”
"There is always the typical friend of your parents who says to you: 'Someday you will make it.' And you are 35 years old and you think: 'But if I have already made it. I do theater, I make money, I have secondary roles in movies. accomplished"
Harbor comes to Los Angeles for work. At the end of the interview in late January, he has been living in a hotel room for three weeks near the Sunset Strip. The hotel is abuzz with actors during the awards season. During the photo shoot we talked about papparazzi, Trump and Harbor's fondness for escape rooms . The coronavirus is not even part of the conversation in a city that is awaiting the Grammys and Oscars that will take place in the coming days. That world of yesterday has only four weeks to live.
The photographer has searched for a classic car that turns like a tank through the hills of Laurel Canyon. The stages are brilliant. However, that day there is something scary in the environment. A very thick fog covers the city. Nothing is seen below. The city, from above, is a white spot. If this were a fantastic horror series like Stranger Things we would say that it is a sign that some imminent misfortune is going to happen. The next morning, in even thicker fog, a nine-person helicopter will crash in North Los Angeles. Among the dead are Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter. The fog in these photos is that fog, just that.
For four years now, Harbor (New York, 1975) has been Jim Hopper, the antihero of Stranger things . A disastrous and tender father for the protagonist, Eleven. Choking but endearing, authoritative but childish, Hopper is becoming the closest thing there is right now to America's dad, a type of character that this country is replacing from generation to generation. "The kids come up to me and it's so ... I'm not your father. I'm not even a father. Sorry".
“I think when you are in your forties he gives you something, you take life less seriously because you realize that you cannot take yourself seriously. If I had become known in my 20s or 30s it would have been a disaster. "
"I feel more and more like that, really," says Harbor of this kind of mythical figure for children. "Because the beginning was very modest. When we started, it was just a job. I was always very excited about the script, I thought that the pilot episode was very beautiful and that the role was incredible, but I have experienced many opportunities in my career that seemed like they were going to be something and then they did not go as I expected. So I started very humbly. I didn't think it was going to be very successful. I thought it was going to be a good minority series. ”
But in these three seasons, Hopper has been "growing more and more until he has become an iconic figure, almost a myth." So is. Since its premiere on Netflix in 2016, the phenomenon Stranger things has made everything it touches iconic, from Millie Bobby Brown, today a world star of just 16 years old, to the eighties, whose aesthetics became fashionable again , of course, by Wynona Ryder, artistically resurrected thanks to this production. Harbor has given the opportunity, at 45, to start a new life, one that he has shared for almost a year with singer Lily Allen.
Fame is being "a half blessing," he says. For one thing, you don't have to worry about paying the rent, you can choose projects and things like that. On the other, he says, he has to be famous at a time when everything is changing. "The problem is arising within the culture at the same time that it has arisen for me, and it seems that today being popular is the same as being good, it is confused with quality. It is what is happening with Instagram, the likes and all these things. There is an algorithm that calculates popularity, children are obsessed with the box office. These are things that never bothered me ”.
It appears that Harbor is in a unique position to judge celebrity worship. “As an artist he is delicate. You become popular, and I like to be popular. It's fun. But you start to hear the voice of what others expect of you. I had never paid attention to him. I think that a true artist, and I am not saying it in a grandiose way, must take the initiative in a certain sense and show you things that you did not know you needed. Paul Simon wants to show you his new music, instead of playing Feeling groovy at every concert until he dies. And I think when fame comes you have that responsibility yourself and it becomes more difficult. ”
He is also alert to the other risk of popularity: "I don't want to pigeonhole myself," he says. Last year a door was opened in that regard. The new version of Hellboy was not exactly a success, but it allowed him to play a very different role from Chief Hopper. This spring, the public was going to see him playing Red Guardian, a new Marvel character who appears in the movie The Black Widow , with Scarlett Johansson. "Comics are our modern mythology," he says of the project. "I never imagined that at my age, with a waist of 100 centimeters, they would invite me to participate in a superhero movie." The pandemic has forced the premiere to be suspended, at least, until November, just as the entire fourth season of Stranger things is in limbo. Filming was due to start in February, a week after this interview. No one expects it to premiere before 2021.
Harbor was always a supporting actor, and much honor. It was "number six on the shooting plan." In 15 years of career he had come to the idea that this was his level, that he was going to stay there and have a decent life. I would never be a star. "So is. And I loved it. I recommend it to anyone who wants to become an actor. There are many people who want to be famous, and not so many who really want to dedicate themselves to acting. I loved every minute of being an unknown high school student who makes a living and can pay the rent working as an actor. I thought it was a good race. There is always the typical friend of your parents who tells you: 'Someday you will make it.' And you are 35 years old and you think: 'But I have already done it. I do theater, I make money, I have supporting roles in movies. I have done it".
That career has been shared with a group of actors his age that started around the year 2000 and have always moved at the level that guy sounds like something to me. "They are still my friends and some are the best actors I have seen, but for some chemical reason in this business ...". Almost everyone is being discovered by television around the 40s as well. They are people like Michael Chernus ( Orange is the new black ), Dave Costabile ( Billions ) or Jeremy Strong ( Succession ). "I've shared auditions with these guys, I've known them for years," says Harbor. “We've been together in the office of Francine Maisler [famous casting director] at Sony or Warner or wherever. You sit on the couch and it turns out it's Jeremy and me, and you're like, 'Motherfucker, you again? One of the two is going to get this role and I don't have my best day ... ".
"In a sense I am thankful that it did not happen sooner because I think it would have been impossible," he reflects. “I think when you are in your forties he gives you something, you take life less seriously because you realize that you cannot take yourself seriously. If I had made myself known in my 20s or 30s it would have been a disaster. ” For the half-dozen children with whom Harbor shares a screen in Stranger things, that will never be the case. “I am concerned that the kids will become famous so soon. I have many experiences in which the world has humiliated me or said no to the beast. I think when you have a certain degree of fame the world starts saying yes very quickly and there are no barriers or disappointments. It is different. I know what it is to be bankrupt. Come on, I know what it is to be truly concerned about paying the rent. ”
Have you talked to the boys about these things? "I try, because I love them. I try to impart what little wisdom I have accumulated. The planet they are growing up on is very different from the planet I grew up on. They have Instagram and branding and everything that I never had and that I know nothing about. But they are also very clever in this system, which is our modern entertainment system. For me it was very simple. I wanted to be an actor. You do theater in your town, then you go to New York, then such ... for them it is not like that ”.
The May issue is now available in PDF format, and is downloadable for free by clicking here.
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