David Harbour names his most harshly treated movie: “It was unfairly bludgeoned”

Posted On January 10, 2026January 10, 2026

Most people only know David Harbour from Stranger Things and, considering how cultlike the show has become over the years, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Much like Winona Ryder’s Joyce Byers, Harbour’s Jim Hopper was the show’s emotional anchor from the very first season, the archetypal father figure whose story revolves around the heroism of protecting his found family, specifically Eleven. From those early moments, we were endeared to him fighting the good fight and stepping into those shoes, come what may.

Harbour didn’t just feel the same sense of connection to his beloved righteous hero; he knew the moment the show came out that it was bigger than he could have ever imagined, for reasons beyond people becoming drawn to his character. As he reflected to Esquire, “There was a very specific moment when I realised I had become, like, an ‘international star’ – and that was the weekend that Stranger Things came out. I realised over those three days: Whoa, I’m going to be on the cover of magazines or whatever.”

The weekend the show came out, Harbour was busy performing in a play, unsuspecting in the face of what was suddenly a “thunderbolt”, and his way of measuring how successful the show was was when he finished his show one night, and instead of a couple of people waiting to meet him, there was a bigger crowd of around 20. 

Before the show, however, Harbour had already accrued a hefty resume, with parts in films and shows like Brokeback Mountain, Revolutionary Road, Black Mass, Law & Order, Elementary, and more, as he’d been building momentum with his casting in the historical drama series Manhattan, but, of course, it wasn’t until Stranger Things that he really became a household name.

While the actor remains grateful for the opportunity and how it catapulted his status among other major industry names, there are always disadvantages to being involved in such a high-profile show. Being scrutinised for personal matters for one, as we’ve seen with the ongoing fallout between Harbour and his wife, Lily Allen, as well as other matters that have surfaced that place him in a more ambiguous position.

Another is that people will only really ever see him in one role, unless he somehow miraculously becomes involved in another project in the future that draws more attention and popularity than his stint in the well-loved Duffer brothers universe. In Harbour’s eyes, this also overshadows the work he’s done in the past that people will largely overlook when it comes to his legacy.

Starring as the titular role in the superhero reboot film Hellboy in 2019 should have been a major moment for Harbour, but it was deemed one of the biggest flops of the year by critics and fans alike. According to the actor, it was set up to fail the moment it was lumped into the broader superhero category, at which point it lost all credibility.

“The problem that I have with comic book movies nowadays is that I think, and it’s a result of the power of Marvel stuff, it’s like chocolate, it’s a flavour,” he told Digital Spy. “So everybody goes chocolate is delicious, and these guys make the best chocolate. So as you judge the movies, it’s like, ‘Well, it’s not as chocolatey as this, this does not taste like chocolate at all.’”

He concluded, “And I sort of want a world where there’s more flavours than just comparisons to chocolate. So, in that way, when Hellboy is viewed on the chocolate spectrum, it does very poorly. That being said, it also has major problems. I think as a rental, or as a movie that you see on an aeroplane, I think you’d be like, ‘Oh that was fun’ because it’s a fun movie, and I think it was unfairly bludgeoned as a result of these comparisons.”

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