The actor on social media and the future of Netflix hit, Stranger Things.
David Harbour has reinvented himself in ways few actors have. From playing supporting roles in major TV shows to starring in one as well as playing the titular comic book character in the 2019 reboot of Hell Boy, it looks like he’s managed to do the improbable.
Appearing on the cover of CNET Magazine, the actor speaks about how he uses social media and the Netflix hit, Stranger Things.
When asked about his “fun” usage of social media as opposed to the toxicity spread by so many others, Harbour noted, “I knew the medium might be the message here, in the sense that social media might be best used to provide some fun for the world — maybe do some good. Because I do think it has power when you have millions of followers. It’s a sort of currency that you can use.
I was like, I can do things maybe that help people, kind of brighten their day — things that are strange and weird and specific to me, but they aren’t yelling about things. People would ask me all these silly things on Twitter. They asked me to go to the prom with them or do this or do that. This one girl asked me to take her senior photos with her for high school. And I said if she got 25,000 retweets I would do it, but I wanted to hold a trombone and wear the school sweatshirt. She got it in hours because all my castmates retweeted and wanted to humiliate me in this way. So we did it.
We set up a shoot that looked like a high school shoot. And we had a trombone, some pompoms, some school sweatshirts and we took senior photos, and she used them in her high school yearbook.
Somebody wants me to officiate their wedding. So that’s happening. I’m getting ordained and I’m going to officiate this person’s wedding. We’ll see how that goes, but I like ones that are kind of silly and unique, and things that cause me some stress and some pain — as opposed to just sign something or take a selfie. This is annoying. I have to get ordained, and I have to figure out — in the state of Illinois — what the requirements are. I have to figure out all of this nonsense. Then I’ve got to get there and I stand up in front of people. So if you have something that’s kind of annoying that I could do but kind of like not crazy annoying, but like slightly annoying — and you get an enough retweets — I’m generally down to do that.”
When asked about Stranger Things, David told CNET: “We’re either going to season 4 or season 5. It’s still being debated. I do know the arc of the story, though. This was something that I discussed with [show creators] the Duffer brothers right from day one. I know somewhat a lot of (David Harbour) Hopper’s place in that story because the more you can know about the end of your story the more you can set up. I feel with acting you can sort of see a character make certain choices and you can feel what is behind it. As you see the end of the story, you’ll start to feel why certain characters behaved certain ways. I think that stuff’s really important, like knowing where your character’s going.
A lot of times you don’t get that in TV. But the great thing about this is that we knew what season 1 was, and we had ideas about if it extended — because we didn’t know we’d get picked up — but if it extended, what the end of the actual thing would be. Like Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi have an arc to them. I think Stranger Things, be it season 4 or season 5, has an arc to it that I understand. I feel very proud of that because we’re not going to get lost in our story and leave these strands. We’re going to tie things up.”
-With information from CNET
