Speaker 1: Making triple deck or ego extravagance as a sunrise, watching
Speaker 1: Westerns together before we doze off, and I know you're
Speaker 1: getting older, growing changing, and I guess, if I'm being
Speaker 1: really honest, that's what scares me. I don't want things
Speaker 1: to change. How did it strike you when you first
Speaker 1: read what you were going to be reading to her?
Speaker 1: There's something so moving about this show, not even anything
Speaker 1: in the writing or anything we're doing, just the fact
Speaker 1: that the kids are getting older. You literally watch these
Speaker 1: children grow up in front of your eyes, and you
Speaker 1: have this character at the center of it, just being like,
Speaker 1: I don't want you guys to grow up. I think
Speaker 1: there's something so basically primal about that as a parent.
Speaker 1: Welcome to That Sat with Me, Dan Patrick, an Amazon
Speaker 1: original podcast where I get to talk to Hollywood stop
Speaker 1: actors and directors about some of the most iconic scenes
Speaker 1: that have defined their careers, helped shape the cinematic landscape,
Speaker 1: then even become fixtures in pop culture. On today's episode,
Speaker 1: were joined by actor David Harbor. David was born in
Speaker 1: White Plains, New York, and began his professional acting career
Speaker 1: on Broadway in nineteen ninety nine, when he was twenty
Speaker 1: four years of age. As he worked his way into
Speaker 1: the Hollywood system through supporting roles, Harbor had all but
Speaker 1: given up on quote making it, that is, until he
Speaker 1: went into an audition for the role of Sheriff Jim
Speaker 1: Hopper on the Netflix series Stranger Things. Stranger Things first
Speaker 1: season was created in twenty sixteen by the Duffer Brothers
Speaker 1: and quickly became one of Netflix's most popular series. In
Speaker 1: its third season in twenty nineteen, it was viewed by
Speaker 1: more than sixty four million households. Harbor stars in the series,
Speaker 1: alongside Monona Ryder, Millie, Bobby Brown, and Finn Wolfhart. The
Speaker 1: success of Stranger Things accelerated David's career, earning him leading
Speaker 1: roles in movies like Hellboy, Marble's Black Widow and Steven
Speaker 1: Soderbergh's No Sudden Moves. The scene in question today comes
Speaker 1: during the finale of season three of Stranger Things, when
Speaker 1: Hop sacrifices himself to save the town and the people
Speaker 1: he loves. But the real emotional gut punch comes when
Speaker 1: Eleven finds the letter left behind. You know when that
Speaker 1: letter to Eleven is pretty powerful. How did it strike
Speaker 1: you when you first read what you were going to
Speaker 1: be reading to her. The funny thing about this particular
Speaker 1: scene is it came halfway through the season. Like when
Speaker 1: we shot the original stuff of him on the bed
Speaker 1: talking to Micha and eleven and reading the initial speech,
Speaker 1: it hadn't even been written that part that he was
Speaker 1: supposed to say, and it really only happened as we
Speaker 1: were shooting that episod. So eight came in and I
Speaker 1: saw that there was this whole rest of the letter,
Speaker 1: and they just stumbled on this thing in the writer's
Speaker 1: room where they were like, what if there was another
Speaker 1: piece of that letter? I mean, a little easter egg
Speaker 1: thing is you can go back and look at him
Speaker 1: reading the letter on his bed when he's rehearsing it,
Speaker 1: And when we shot that, there was just a little paragraph,
Speaker 1: and they actually had to go in and cegi a
Speaker 1: whole extra bit of it so that you could believe
Speaker 1: that there was a lot more written on there that
Speaker 1: he didn't get to say. There was something about that
Speaker 1: letter that was so earnest and so personal. And again,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think was so perfect
Speaker 1: that really sums him up is he just says it
Speaker 1: in a letter. I mean it just says I don't
Speaker 1: want things to change. There's something so moving about this show,
Speaker 1: not even anything in the writing or anything we're doing,
Speaker 1: just the fact that the kids are getting older. You
Speaker 1: literally watch these children grow up in front of your eyes,
Speaker 1: and you have this character at the center of it,
Speaker 1: just being like, I don't want you guys to grow up.
Speaker 1: And I think there's something so basically primal about that.
Speaker 1: As a pair, I don't want things to change. So
Speaker 1: I think maybe that's why I came in here to
Speaker 1: try to maybe stop that changing, to turn back the clock,
Speaker 1: to make things go back to how they were. But
Speaker 1: I know that's naive. It's just not how life works.
Speaker 1: It's moving, always moving, whether you like it or not.
Speaker 1: And yeah, sometimes it's painful, sometimes it's sad, and sometimes
Speaker 1: it's surprising. My stepdaughters An now are eight and nine,
Speaker 1: and there's just something so prep it's just about there.
Speaker 1: But you see them each week, it seems like they
Speaker 1: get more sophisticated, and there's you know, of course, there's
Speaker 1: beauty in that, but there's also just something tragic, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I wish you could just stay a puppy. A puppy
Speaker 1: gets doubles in size in a couple of weeks. Like
Speaker 1: you see the puppy get bigger right in front of you,
Speaker 1: Denzel didn't get older in front of you. A little bit,
Speaker 1: but not much. You're right, he still looks pretty good. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: because I think time really is the biggest villain and
Speaker 1: the most profound thing in our lives. I mean, it
Speaker 1: gives everything, meaning it's also the villain that we're constantly
Speaker 1: fighting against. It's like everything breaks down over time, like
Speaker 1: my body and my mind. I mean, throughout the season,
Speaker 1: we see him like eating potato chips on the couch,
Speaker 1: yelling at children, just being a nasty guy, even to
Speaker 1: Joyce and all these people that love him and that
Speaker 1: he loves. And you don't quite really understand what it's
Speaker 1: about until you really get to the core of it
Speaker 1: that he arrives at, which is that I'm so tired
Speaker 1: of things changing. He had such a beautiful, idyllic life
Speaker 1: with this young daughter of his and then things dramatically change,
Speaker 1: and he's so terrified of change. Now here's what's going
Speaker 1: to happen. I'm gonna drive you home, and I'm gonna speak,
Speaker 1: and you're going to listen, and then maybe maybe by
Speaker 1: the end of it. Maybe, if you're lucky, maybe I
Speaker 1: will continue to allow you to date my daughter. What
Speaker 1: do you take away from that first time you saw
Speaker 1: Levin read that letter, I didn't get to see her
Speaker 1: shoot it, so I really just shoot my portion of it,
Speaker 1: and then I watched the show along with everybody else
Speaker 1: when it comes out. That's the first time you saw
Speaker 1: her in that scene. Yeah, And we shoot a lot
Speaker 1: in order so I shall the big fight and I
Speaker 1: have like little things like that. And then I shot
Speaker 1: my sequence in the cabin towards the end. I hadn't
Speaker 1: seen her for months at the end of the Shoe
Speaker 1: and then for six months in post production. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I just watched it along with everybody else when it
Speaker 1: came out. It's beautiful. I mean million. I have always
Speaker 1: had sort of a special relationship because I knew her
Speaker 1: when she was so young, and I knew her before
Speaker 1: any of this big fame hit. You know, I have
Speaker 1: a real protective feeling for her. I have a real, like,
Speaker 1: you know, worry about her. I worry about her and
Speaker 1: the fame and all that she has to struggle with.
Speaker 1: And I've just always felt this kind of deep fatherly
Speaker 1: affection for her, So you know, it's on one hand
Speaker 1: wonderful to see her do this beautiful job so moving,
Speaker 1: and on the other hand, I can really only see
Speaker 1: her as this eleven character and to see her in
Speaker 1: that pain. I mean, I remember even that scene where
Speaker 1: she's wandering around at the end of the after Joyce
Speaker 1: comes out Hopper's dad and she's looking for him, and
Speaker 1: I remember, you know, just what an awful thing to
Speaker 1: have this innocent little creature that's been holed up finally
Speaker 1: find someone who cares about her and takes care of her,
Speaker 1: and to lose that person. So you know what, keep
Speaker 1: on growing up. Kill, don't let me stop. You make mistakes,
Speaker 1: learn from m and when life hurts you, because it will,
Speaker 1: remember the hurt. The hurt is good. It means you're
Speaker 1: out of that cave. But please, if you don't mind,
Speaker 1: for the sake of your poor old dad, keep the
Speaker 1: door open three inches. And I couldn't help but think
Speaker 1: back to when we're first introduced to your character. That
Speaker 1: guy couldn't have raised a daughter, but a couple of
Speaker 1: years later, like what happened with that transformation? And I
Speaker 1: didn't know if real life helped you raise a daughter
Speaker 1: or TV help you real daughters in real life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's much more of the latter, Like TV definitely helped
Speaker 1: me in my life. I'm very much in New York
Speaker 1: sort of city rat. I liked my freedom, my independence,
Speaker 1: and then it was really this part that did change
Speaker 1: a lot of that perspective. You know. The show sort
Speaker 1: of opened my heart in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1: And one of the ways that it did was it
Speaker 1: started to make me realize how thin my existence was
Speaker 1: without a family. The fact that this guy was maturing
Speaker 1: into a father sort of was something clearly that my
Speaker 1: subconscious was sort of crying out to do. And I
Speaker 1: think it's partially why things are successful is because there's
Speaker 1: some unique alchemy between the performer and the role. And
Speaker 1: I feel like there was something in Hopper that had
Speaker 1: this deep need for family, and there was something in
Speaker 1: me that had it too, but that I wasn't even
Speaker 1: aware of. And then as I began to explore this role,
Speaker 1: the role allowed me to do that in my real life.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like it was a nice test run,
Speaker 1: but thematically the show's about found family. Yes, it is.
Speaker 1: I think one of the most interesting things about Hopper
Speaker 1: that I've been playing with through the seasons and won't
Speaker 1: have to see where this goes. Is that there's also
Speaker 1: something to do with blood family that is different than
Speaker 1: anything else, And I think it's why we're haunted when
Speaker 1: we have you know, you can have a found family
Speaker 1: and yet you still have like an absent father or
Speaker 1: an absent mother in a sense, and I think you're
Speaker 1: still haunted by that for your whole life. You know,
Speaker 1: Eleven becomes Hopper's daughter and he loves her in a deep,
Speaker 1: deep way, but also when you substitute something like that,
Speaker 1: it almost makes you more haunted about your blood daughter
Speaker 1: and her death. So in a way, there is a
Speaker 1: maturing and a sort of good feeling around that, and
Speaker 1: underneath it there's this feeling like you know, your blood
Speaker 1: family will never quite be replaced. That is sort of
Speaker 1: the haunted quality that continues to pulse through their relationship
Speaker 1: a little bit. How much input do you have in
Speaker 1: the script? How much did you have in this season
Speaker 1: coming up that you could say how about or let's
Speaker 1: try this instead? Yes, I mean they write beautiful scripts,
Speaker 1: they direct beautifully, they have great ideas, and they're also
Speaker 1: very collaborative. So coming in I can do a lot
Speaker 1: of what I want and change around a lot of
Speaker 1: different stuff. And again, a lot of it is simple
Speaker 1: moments ideas about things. The scripts are so good when
Speaker 1: they come in, though it's rare on these I like
Speaker 1: to change a lot of stuff. I tend to feel
Speaker 1: like I'm, you know, pretty smart about this stuff. But
Speaker 1: usually they're smarter than I am. They come up with
Speaker 1: great stuff and I just read it and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: this is great, But I can change sort of whatever
Speaker 1: I want. What's it like to pick up the script
Speaker 1: and realize you're dying? We had always talked about this,
Speaker 1: you know, and on interviews I had had to say
Speaker 1: for about a year that I was like, not sure,
Speaker 1: but I have always talked to them about this arc
Speaker 1: of resurrection. Wait, when do you know that you're not
Speaker 1: really dying? I mean, me and these guys, the Duffer brothers,
Speaker 1: are unnaturally close in a way that I rarely heard
Speaker 1: show runners and actors as close as me and these guys.
Speaker 1: I think it's partially because they were really nobody's when
Speaker 1: we started this show, and I was in nobody too
Speaker 1: in a sense, and so we kind of came up
Speaker 1: together and feel like a kinship and a brotherhood around that,
Speaker 1: and I've known the arc of it since the very
Speaker 1: first frame, And in fact, when we were that first season,
Speaker 1: we were all so scared and we never thought we'd
Speaker 1: get picked up for a second season. But we would
Speaker 1: sit around and fantasize about what it could be, and
Speaker 1: they told me a lot about what it could be,
Speaker 1: and this and that and the other thing. So when
Speaker 1: the third season rolled around, we talked a lot about
Speaker 1: these ideas of resurrection. Even from the first season, when
Speaker 1: Joyce comes in and says to him that she's missing
Speaker 1: her son, he just doesn't want to look for the kid.
Speaker 1: And at some point I started to realize I was like,
Speaker 1: Hopper's kind of a piece of shit, Like in the
Speaker 1: beginning of the thing, like he's he's really trying to
Speaker 1: kill himself and he has to die. Ninety nine out
Speaker 1: of one hundred times kid goes missing, the kid is
Speaker 1: with a parent or a relative. What about the other time,
Speaker 1: you said, ninety nine out of a hundred, What about
Speaker 1: the other time one? The one Joyce is Hawkins. Okay,
Speaker 1: I know the worst thing that's ever happened here in
Speaker 1: the four years I've been working here. Do one of
Speaker 1: the worst thing it was when an owl attacked Eleanor's
Speaker 1: head because it thought that her hair was a nest.
Speaker 1: Just find my son, hop find him. When he finds Will,
Speaker 1: he gets resurrected in a sense, and he finds himself
Speaker 1: and he finds his purpose. But I've always felt like
Speaker 1: the Hopper that was had to die in the sense.
Speaker 1: And the great thing about sci Fi is you get
Speaker 1: to do this squacky resurrection thing, where like in Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings, Gandolf the Gray descends into darkness with
Speaker 1: the ball rock Devil and then re emerges as Gandalf
Speaker 1: the White. And I always thought it would be. We
Speaker 1: had always talked about this idea of like him having
Speaker 1: this fatherly angst and this whole thing and getting bigger
Speaker 1: and then like really going down with the devil and
Speaker 1: then re emerging. So but yeah, I knew he was
Speaker 1: gonna have a very emotional, big scene, but I knew
Speaker 1: that he also wasn't really dead. Well who is Hopper then?
Speaker 1: After the resurrection? Well, well don't you wouldn't you like
Speaker 1: to know? I mean, he's being rebirthed. This season, he's
Speaker 1: in a particularly brutal world. He's also gone from being
Speaker 1: a police officer to being a prisoner and he's in
Speaker 1: a foreign land. We're going to see a lot of
Speaker 1: new colors from him and a lot of old, old,
Speaker 1: deep colors that we haven't really explored. There are these
Speaker 1: boxes in the basement of season two that have some
Speaker 1: words on them, and we go into a lot of
Speaker 1: that backstory that we haven't seen. And we wanted to
Speaker 1: have a resurrection to have him explore this new plumage,
Speaker 1: shed some of that older skin, and really become more
Speaker 1: of the man that he needs to be for the
Speaker 1: final push. I saw some Indiana Jones in there later,
Speaker 1: and like season three, now you're kind of you got
Speaker 1: the hat on, You're you're kind of embracing Indiana Jones
Speaker 1: a little bit. Is that by design? Yeah? Totally. I
Speaker 1: mean we love the Spielberg movies. That's the Duffer's whole
Speaker 1: thing is, you know, we're they're doing Gooni's et Indiana
Speaker 1: Jones and and my character has always occupied that space
Speaker 1: of Indiana Jones. Yeah, I've got Jim Hawks. We really
Speaker 1: did this kind of magnum pi thing with him the
Speaker 1: last season with the Hawaiian shirt or the eighties type
Speaker 1: shirt and this mustache because the original conception when he
Speaker 1: goes out and buys new clothes, we were like this
Speaker 1: too much. At first, she went to the mall and
Speaker 1: went to Banana Republic back before it was like the
Speaker 1: Banana Republic. I don't know if you remember Banana Republic
Speaker 1: in the eighties, but Banana Republic in the eighties had
Speaker 1: like elephant tusks and like jungle gear, like jungle photographer
Speaker 1: vests and stuff. So we had Flow his secretary get
Speaker 1: him like a full on Indiana Jones practically costume from
Speaker 1: Banana Republic. And then we saw it in the fittings
Speaker 1: and we were like, this is just too much. We
Speaker 1: gotta stop nodding so much sothing. But I mean, we
Speaker 1: love that movie. I just love that movie, and I
Speaker 1: love Harrison Ford and general. So there's so many homages
Speaker 1: to you know, Nick Nold, d and all these other guys,
Speaker 1: but especially to Harrison Ford and what he did with me,
Speaker 1: Dan Jones. Now, did you stay in Russia to film
Speaker 1: Black Widow? I mean, it's wacky that I'm doing two
Speaker 1: projects in Russian prisons, but they are stranger things. Prison
Speaker 1: is in Lithuania, and then the Black Widow stuff is
Speaker 1: primarily on stages in London. So you're you're well versed
Speaker 1: in Russian prison I'm unfortunately well well versed in Russian prisons. Well,
Speaker 1: if you didn't make major in Russian at Dartmouth, did you, No,
Speaker 1: I have no relationship to Russia. I've read some dust Tryevsky, Chekhov,
Speaker 1: and that's about where my Russian yeah ends. How long
Speaker 1: did it take before you told Winona that you had
Speaker 1: a crush on her? It was pretty immediate, Like you
Speaker 1: try to play it cool. I've worked with a lot
Speaker 1: of big celebrities throughout my career, and you know, you
Speaker 1: try to play it cool the first couple of days
Speaker 1: and pretend like you're just a couple of actors. But
Speaker 1: it was pretty early on. I think it was one
Speaker 1: of our long shoots where you just start to get comfortable.
Speaker 1: You say, Friday, eight o'clock. Hell likes to watch Miami
Speaker 1: Vice on Fridays. It SARTs a ten, so I can't
Speaker 1: be out late on Friday. Okay, well how about seven?
Speaker 1: Then seven? And so it was Friday. I meet you there.
Speaker 1: I picked me up, picking you up seven pm Friday,
Speaker 1: not to date, just for clarifications, because I mean, just
Speaker 1: when you say date just so that we're crystal clear
Speaker 1: by things, so yeah, stop talking. We had a real
Speaker 1: chemistry right from the bat. I think it was the
Speaker 1: first night we were in La after we'd both been cast,
Speaker 1: and the Duffers we all went out to dinner. She's
Speaker 1: such a sweet, very affectionate, very open woman for being
Speaker 1: such a big star, and she just kind of grabbed
Speaker 1: me and we talked for like five hours. I remember
Speaker 1: the Duffers were like trying to get us to go.
Speaker 1: They were like, we're done with dinner. We've been done
Speaker 1: with dinner for three hours, and you guys are just
Speaker 1: But I have a real chemistry or real affection for it.
Speaker 1: But I tried to play it cool and then I just,
Speaker 1: you know, it blurted out at some point like I
Speaker 1: love you. I think you're good. And then you wait
Speaker 1: for her response back thought, don't you hope that she
Speaker 1: says something nice back? Or did you just hang there? No? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like a five year old boy, I just run away.
Speaker 1: How do you think you got cast? What do you
Speaker 1: think you did during your audition that got you that
Speaker 1: this role? Which stranger things? Yeah, Carmen Cube of the
Speaker 1: casting director was very interested in me for a role,
Speaker 1: and this thing came about. They sent me the script.
Speaker 1: I thought the script was extraordinary, and they wanted me
Speaker 1: to read for it, so I went in. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess I had gotten to a certain point in
Speaker 1: my career where I was pretty tired of not getting
Speaker 1: cast and things that I felt very connected to and
Speaker 1: kind of getting cast as like the supporting guy running
Speaker 1: with a gun, chasing Denzel and stuff. So I was
Speaker 1: pretty cynical, to be honest, And I guess I wore
Speaker 1: a hat because I felt like this guy is such
Speaker 1: an alcoholic and a pill popper that he wouldn't want
Speaker 1: people to see his eyes. He'd always want to be
Speaker 1: sort of shielded, And so I wore a hat. And
Speaker 1: Carmen and I read the scene once and you know,
Speaker 1: she was like, that was good. You want to try
Speaker 1: one without the hat so we can kind of see
Speaker 1: your eyes, And I was like no, So we did
Speaker 1: another one just with the hat. You know, it's sometimes
Speaker 1: those things where you don't care. I didn't think I
Speaker 1: would get this. At that point. Netflix had had The
Speaker 1: House of Cards with Kevin Spacey and Orange is the
Speaker 1: New Black, and I really thought they were looking for
Speaker 1: kind of a big star for this, and I didn't
Speaker 1: think there was really any shot of me getting it,
Speaker 1: so I kind of, in a sense, threw it away
Speaker 1: and was and I think that was part of what
Speaker 1: made the audition so relaxed and special. Gosh, looking back,
Speaker 1: if he would really gone after it, do you think
Speaker 1: he would have screwed it up? I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that's the cruel irony of this entire business is just
Speaker 1: the you know, the more you want it, the less
Speaker 1: they want you. So yeah, there was something about that,
Speaker 1: you know, who cares quality? I think made me very attractive.
Speaker 1: Do you have a nightmare audition story? So many of them?
Speaker 1: I mean I can't even you know, I've been called
Speaker 1: just terrible. I mean people just have thought I was
Speaker 1: just awful. Normally, when people don't like it, they just
Speaker 1: let you go and everything. But there are people out
Speaker 1: there that are just cruel and awful for years and
Speaker 1: years and year. But did you take names? And I
Speaker 1: mean you know at the time you take a name,
Speaker 1: I remember all these that way at the time, and
Speaker 1: you're just like, I will never when I get big,
Speaker 1: I will never and that person will suffer. And that
Speaker 1: goes on for like a month and then you're just
Speaker 1: like whatever. And there are people that I see now
Speaker 1: that are successful, very successful, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: was gonna take that guy, and you're like whatever, Like
Speaker 1: let him wait, there's room. There's room for all of us.
Speaker 1: Are you any different as an actor from when you
Speaker 1: didn't think you could get these rules? I know you're
Speaker 1: always working on your craft, but are you that much
Speaker 1: of a different person actor than you were, let's say,
Speaker 1: five years ago. When your narrative is validated, it gives
Speaker 1: you a certain confidence, and the fact that people want
Speaker 1: what you have to say gives you a certain relaxation
Speaker 1: and exploring as opposed to trying new things. I'm less
Speaker 1: trying out new things, which was more of what I
Speaker 1: needed before, and now you've become this viable thing, and
Speaker 1: you want to explore more of that viable thing. In
Speaker 1: a sense, I'm different, but I'm still the same guy
Speaker 1: who's been doing it for twenty five years. But what
Speaker 1: comes in now there's got to be a whole lot
Speaker 1: different than it was a few years ago. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And also it's like, you know, it used to be
Speaker 1: just projects would come to you and you'd get cast
Speaker 1: or audition or something, and Now it's more about setting
Speaker 1: things up and you know, working out stories together, which
Speaker 1: is really exciting because you get to control the narrative
Speaker 1: even more. What's it like to die on green screen
Speaker 1: or using green screen? The whole thing is still you
Speaker 1: really do have to have a lot of focus and
Speaker 1: a lot of imagination. A lot of film is this way,
Speaker 1: especially like horror films. You people walking down hallways being
Speaker 1: all nervous, and you know, there's like a crew of
Speaker 1: ten people with cameras and like fans and so this
Speaker 1: was you know, for the Hopper's big death, it was
Speaker 1: like they were huge fans and there was you know,
Speaker 1: the cameras like swooping right at you. There's tons of people,
Speaker 1: people coming in for touch ups. It's really hard to maintain,
Speaker 1: especially for a look like that that's so important. It
Speaker 1: really does take a tremendous amount of focus. So in
Speaker 1: a way, yeah, it's it's it's really hard, but it's
Speaker 1: like it's make believe. When you're a kid, you do
Speaker 1: make believe, and here you are grown up and you're
Speaker 1: being asked to do make believe. Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: I mean that's the great thing about children is that
Speaker 1: they can do make believe. And the problem with acting
Speaker 1: is you actually have to learn a skill set. By
Speaker 1: the time you hit around seventeen or eighteen, you start
Speaker 1: to realize that, you know, Stanzlowski talked about this, whereas
Speaker 1: like the Flower of youth and the Flower of craft,
Speaker 1: like young people can do extraordinary things when they sit
Speaker 1: down at a tea table and they have a tea party,
Speaker 1: whereas adults were just like, you know, we don't have
Speaker 1: that same kind of imagination. You have to train it.
Speaker 1: It's very gets much harder the further the older I get.
Speaker 1: Do you keep anything from the set? Are you a
Speaker 1: hoarder at all? That? Stranger things? You keep anything? A
Speaker 1: little bit? I mean I used to keep costume pieces,
Speaker 1: but now I don't do that anymore, even when they
Speaker 1: give you, like a nice suit or sign, because whenever
Speaker 1: I wear it out, I just reminded of that character
Speaker 1: and it's such a it's a weird thing. There's one
Speaker 1: very specific prop this season that's a big spoiler if
Speaker 1: I told you what it was, it's like, it's a crazy,
Speaker 1: terrific prop. And I begged the prop guys for that
Speaker 1: and they finally gave it to me. I'm very excited
Speaker 1: have we seen this prop before though you have not
Speaker 1: seen it. No, it's a very new thing. Oh okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you after this team comes out, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you which one it was. And what about the truck, Like,
Speaker 1: do you want to keep hops trunk? I love that
Speaker 1: Chevy Blazer. Yeah, I love that truck, although it's not
Speaker 1: six shift, which annoys me. That's not any fun. What
Speaker 1: kind of cassette tapes did you have in? Then? I
Speaker 1: mean he's a big Jim Crowchy fan. I feel like
Speaker 1: he's a big seventies like Jim Crouchy. I think he'd
Speaker 1: even listened to like some rock and roll in terms
Speaker 1: of like you know, Thin Lizzy or something but bad
Speaker 1: bad Leroy Brown or something like yeah, yeah, yeah, baddest
Speaker 1: man in the whole damn town. He's you know, Indiana.
Speaker 1: And then like yeah, I mean he doesn't have the
Speaker 1: greatest taste of music because he would have been in
Speaker 1: his thirties when he discovered Jim Crochi, and I think
Speaker 1: all our music taste becomes horrible after about twenty four,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think he I think Jim Crochi probably
Speaker 1: even listen to some Simon and Garfunkle and stuff. A
Speaker 1: lot of what I do with that, even like Kenny
Speaker 1: Rogers or something. I mean, I don't know what Indiana
Speaker 1: boys would listen to. That seems to be what the
Speaker 1: palette would be for me. I'm trying to think him
Speaker 1: Indiana Bastion John Mellencamp might have been a big deal
Speaker 1: back then. That's interesting. I feel like he's such a
Speaker 1: product like Hopper, such a product of the seventies. Like
Speaker 1: when I listened to music, I don't know that I'm
Speaker 1: listening to stuff from like twenty fifteen on. I'm like
Speaker 1: more into like nineties and like two thousands music. I
Speaker 1: think just a product of when you're in your forties
Speaker 1: or fifties. I don't think you're that on that cutting
Speaker 1: edge of things anymore. What about Glenn Campbell for hop
Speaker 1: Oh that's good. I like that. Wow, this is good.
Speaker 1: I'm calling you next time. And you play a dad
Speaker 1: in Black Widow. So you're like, you're embracing that you're
Speaker 1: going to be type cast from here on out. Thinking
Speaker 1: I do like the fact that I'm being embraced for
Speaker 1: a certain thing, but also you do somewhat want to
Speaker 1: fight against it. One of the interesting things about Hopper
Speaker 1: this season, although you do see a lot of that
Speaker 1: fatherly stuff is I did want to take them back
Speaker 1: into the warrior realm because you know, there's something as
Speaker 1: you get to be the dad role where you you know,
Speaker 1: it's a bit like the dad jeans or what you
Speaker 1: start to become less of a viable presence in the
Speaker 1: world and more like oh dad, like someone bes like
Speaker 1: humiliated and like like I'm not quite ready for that.
Speaker 1: I still want to be like a present. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I struggle with it a little bit. Do you think
Speaker 1: you could take Captain America? Hell, No, I'm too much
Speaker 1: of a dad for that. I mean, especially Chris Evans
Speaker 1: at his prime with Captain. Maybe I could take Anthony Mackie.
Speaker 1: Now that the mantel is changing hands, I feel like
Speaker 1: I'd like to square off against that guy. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: Chris Evans at the height of his game, wielding the
Speaker 1: four hammer, smashing thanos, I think I'd have a very
Speaker 1: hard time against that. The Red Guardian has a dad bod. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: although I got even bigger for Red Guardian. I mean
Speaker 1: there's a shot in that movie at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the movie which I just love. When you see him
Speaker 1: I'm running out and you see my belly running in
Speaker 1: front of me, and my friend of mine said, was
Speaker 1: like a bag of ferrets, like swirling in front of
Speaker 1: my body. Yeah, I was big. I got I was
Speaker 1: like I think I was two seventy five to eighty
Speaker 1: when I shot that. As I shot the movie, I
Speaker 1: lost a little weight and they were able to pad
Speaker 1: me once I got on that super suit. But you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, gaining weight for those movies is a lot
Speaker 1: of fun, a lot of fun, and then losing it
Speaker 1: is so difficult. So wait, what was this year Raging
Speaker 1: Bull moment that you're you're de Niro? Herees a little bit? Yeah,
Speaker 1: a little bit. You know, you play with those concepts.
Speaker 1: It's such a trope in film now. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: losing weight or gaining weight for a movie that I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be left out myself. So yeah, well
Speaker 1: that's how you went awards there exactly. You know, I
Speaker 1: gotta get this emmy maybe one day, so I gotta
Speaker 1: do something. What's your family think of your career as
Speaker 1: an actor? Initially they were very scared about me going
Speaker 1: into it. They really didn't want me to do this.
Speaker 1: I was relentless, though, and couldn't be you know, talked
Speaker 1: out of it. So I waited tables and I was
Speaker 1: kind of miserable for a while, went through hard times
Speaker 1: and was very poor and well, my friends were all
Speaker 1: having families and doing all kinds of stuff. I was
Speaker 1: in a different place, and now, you know, having some success.
Speaker 1: It's just great. I think they're really proud of me,
Speaker 1: and I think they are proud of my tenacity as well.
Speaker 1: I think everybody's most proud of my tenacity that you know.
Speaker 1: It took a long time for me to be established
Speaker 1: in a certain way, but I kept at it, and
Speaker 1: I think that's uh. I think they think that's wonderful.
Speaker 1: But you kind of held off adulthood. That's true. That's true.
Speaker 1: That that that this business, as goofy as it is,
Speaker 1: it allows you to get away with stuff because you're
Speaker 1: an actor exactly. Yeah, you're kind of Peter Pan, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's funny, like I've always had a somewhat of
Speaker 1: a complex relationship with adulthood in general, because I tend
Speaker 1: to feel that a lot of the tragedy of this
Speaker 1: world comes from adults or adult type behavior. I mean,
Speaker 1: it tends to be the quote unquote smartest guys in
Speaker 1: the room that start wars and you know, do horrible
Speaker 1: things the environment and stuff like that. So there's something
Speaker 1: about that staving off of adulthood that is just in
Speaker 1: my nature. I also wonder that you're you know, you
Speaker 1: go to Dartmouth and most parents would go, my son's
Speaker 1: at Dartmouth. And then my son gets out of Dartmouth.
Speaker 1: What's your son knew? Who went to Dartmouth? Um, he's
Speaker 1: waiting tables and he wants to be an actor. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of that was a lot. But do
Speaker 1: you say to mom, Hey, I'm gonna make you proud
Speaker 1: one day, or do you start to then you know,
Speaker 1: maybe buy into it. Like what am I doing? I
Speaker 1: went to Dartmouth and I'm waiting tables. I mean I
Speaker 1: was doing avant garde theater in New York with little
Speaker 1: theater companies in the you know, and making my parents
Speaker 1: donate money to my nonprofit theater and production. I mean
Speaker 1: it was like humiliating for a nice Westchester boy who
Speaker 1: went to Dartmouth, you know, when they were all all
Speaker 1: the other guys were eye bankers. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: I descended into a thick intellectualism about how what I
Speaker 1: was doing was super important compared to what everyone else
Speaker 1: is doing. That was part of the buffer. And then
Speaker 1: you know, and then there was that deep insecurity and
Speaker 1: fear underneath it. But as I say, like there was
Speaker 1: just this relentless drive and it felt almost like a calling,
Speaker 1: like you hear people describe the priesthood in these ways,
Speaker 1: where it really was that I didn't. I couldn't imagine
Speaker 1: myself doing anything other than exploring human behavior through narrative
Speaker 1: and stage and film. I just couldn't imagine anything else emotionally.
Speaker 1: Are you better at showing anger or sensitivity on screen? Well,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. I suppose anger comes more naturally
Speaker 1: to me. But usually underneath that anger is a lot
Speaker 1: of hurt sensitivity based on just like being a you know,
Speaker 1: feeling humiliated like a four year old and not as
Speaker 1: a man, not being able to express it other than
Speaker 1: power and control, which is sort of how I was
Speaker 1: brought up as a man. That like, that's the way
Speaker 1: you were supposed to I mean, I was growing up.
Speaker 1: My whole family's from Houston, Texas, and I was you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I grew up in New York, but that
Speaker 1: this sort of blood you know philosophy of ours, which
Speaker 1: was that you know, boys don't cry and men are
Speaker 1: a certain way, so yeah, anger comes a lot more natural.
Speaker 1: Would you have been able to handle this success ten
Speaker 1: years fifteen years ago? No? Are you able to handle
Speaker 1: it now? I mean I think now I am. I
Speaker 1: feel for those kids. I mean, they seem to be
Speaker 1: doing quite well with it. I'm forty six now, so
Speaker 1: this attention sort of came like at forty, and there's
Speaker 1: something there's a particular brand of early thirties male ambition
Speaker 1: that is so dangerous. I mean that, like, had I
Speaker 1: gotten successful at thirty as opposed to forty, I feel
Speaker 1: like it would have been kind of a nightmare. I
Speaker 1: think there's something about success at thirty where you really
Speaker 1: do take credit for it, like your ego really is like, yes,
Speaker 1: I am something special, welcome world. And I think that
Speaker 1: when you're forty you're kind of like, I mean, like
Speaker 1: it's hard to take much in life seriously. You know,
Speaker 1: at a certain point you realize that it's all just
Speaker 1: like a bit of a game and a bit of
Speaker 1: a wheel of fortune that spins us all around. I
Speaker 1: think any younger than forty I would have been unbearable
Speaker 1: and I'm bad enough as it is, but like, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it would have been at night. Thank you, David. I
Speaker 1: appreciate your time and in good luck with the upcoming movies.
Speaker 1: That was a pleasure, Thank you. New episodes of That
Speaker 1: Scene are available exclusively on Amazon Music, and all of
Speaker 1: season one is available wherever you get your podcast, so
Speaker 1: make sure you follow us in the Amazon Music app.
Speaker 1: That Scene with Dan Patrick created, hosted, produced by me.
Speaker 1: Our showrunner and producer is Brendan Pike, edited by Nathan Moody.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced by Paul Anderson. Nick Pinella
Speaker 1: and Andrew Greenwood are associate producers, Bill Ryan and Marvin Prince.
Speaker 1: That Scene is an Amazon Original and a production of
Speaker 1: Dan Patrick Productions.