Despite having had training in “classical American method acting,” David Harbour no longer supports or employs the technique. Although he is currently most famous for his role as Jim Hopper in the Netflix hit show “Stranger Things,” Harbour began his career with supporting parts in movies like “Brokeback Mountain” and “Revolutionary Road.”
“When I was younger — it’s so embarrassing — but I remember playing that famous Scottish King,” Harbour shared in an interview with GQ magazine. “And being like, ‘I’m gonna kill a cat’ or something: ‘I’m gonna go murder something to know what it feels like to murder.’ I didn’t actually do it, obviously. Not only is that [method acting] stuff silly, it’s dangerous, and it actually doesn’t produce good work.”
Harbour pointed out that when Daniel Day-Lewis was named by GQ as the “preeminent, respectable example” of method acting, saying “He’s an extraordinary actor who I’m captivated and fascinated by. [But] when he explains his process it sounds like nonsense to me.”
In recent months, a small number of actors have joined Harbour in speaking out against method acting. Beloved “Hannibal” actor Mads Mikkelsen blasted the procedure in an interview from April, stating, “It’s bullshit. But preparation, you can take into insanity. What if it’s a shit film — what do you think you achieved? Am I impressed that you didn’t drop character? You should have dropped it from the beginning! How do you prepare for a serial killer? You gonna spend two years checking it out?”
No matter how much Harbour disagrees with method acting, that doesn’t mean he won’t change for his parts. In “Stranger Things 4,” where Hopper discovers himself incarcerated in Russia, the actor revealed to GQ that he had to drastically reduce his weight in order to play the role again. Hopper would no longer be sporting the dad bod, similar to his appearance in the past seasons after spending months in prison.
“I lost about 80 pounds from Season 3 — I was about 270 [then], and when we shot [Season 4] I was around 190,” Harbour said, adding that he relied on intermittent fasting and Pilates. “I don’t think I’ll ever do that again.”
The first four seasons of “Stranger Things” are now streaming on Netflix. In the future, the series will return for its fifth and last season.
