Harbour gets buff and gruff as ‘Hellboy’
There aren’t many Hollywood couples as geek-friendly as “Stranger Things” star David Harbour and “Fantastic Beasts” actress Alison Sudol, though that only goes so far for one of them.
Harbour inquired about getting his own Right Hand of Doom, the monstrous stony fist he wears as the half-demon comic-book superhero of “Hellboy” (in theaters Friday), to add to his home decor. “I was really excited. That to me is the ultimate Hellboy thing,” Harbour says. “And then my girlfriend got wind of that and was like, ‘There’s no (expletive) way we’re hanging that on our wall, you comic nerd.’ ”
He is a man of many accessories, though. There’s the sheriff’s hat Harbour dons yet again as gruff but goodhearted local cop Jim Hopper for the third season of Netflix’s “Stranger Things” (streaming July 4), the popular 1980s-set show about small-town Indiana kids fighting other-dimensional monsters.
But Harbour, who was named CinemaCon’s action star of the year last week, wields all sorts of arms – supernatural and otherwise – as the surly and sarcastic Hellboy, who wants to be a hero despite the fact that he’s prophesied to bring upon an apocalypse. (The new film is a reboot of Guillermo del Toro’s two “Hellboy” movies starring Ron Perlman as Big Red.)
“It’s like you’re an animal, and you’re meant to eat meat and you decide to become a vegetarian,” Harbour says. “In this superhero genre, a lot of times the good guy can be on the nose, and I like real, complicated characters.”
Next up for Harbour is teaming with a couple of Avengers: He co-stars with
Chris Hemsworth in the upcoming Netflix action film “Dhaka” and with Scarlett Johansson in a prequel “Black Widow” solo movie.
The Emmy-nominated actor chats with USA TODAY about becoming Hellboy, getting buff and fame in his 40s.
Q: Describe what looks like a hellacious transformation process.
Harbour: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I think it was 66 applications of the makeup, which is two-and-a-half hours in the chair with (people) just constantly going over my face and body and everything. I’d never been covered in latex before. I would sweat, and the sweat would have to pour out of my eyes and the horns. They’d have to unzip the back of the suit and just put in these huge industrial airconditioning fans so I didn’t pass out. (But) I would put my headphones in and go to sleep, and then I’d wake up and I look in the mirror and there’d be a completely
different animal there.
Q: How did fitness help?
Harbour: I wanted to fill out this suit and I wanted him to be a monster, just really big. A lot of it was about putting on muscle and the other thing is about strength and power, and it does make a difference. I’m 43 – I don’t move like I did when I was 22. The idea that I’m going to go off and fight enormous giant monsters, I had to get limber and powerful. Unfortunately, some people saw the picture of me (as Hellboy) and then saw me normally and were like, “Oh, look at what incredibly shape he got in!” If you’d like to look like that, you should hire my makeup person as opposed to my trainer.
Q: Can you connect with both Hellboy and Hopper more in your 40s than, say, in your 30s?
Harbour: I definitely think so. It’s funny that my success has come in my 40s because I really wasn’t ready to tell the stories that I have to tell until I was old and crabby enough. I have an appreciation of failure: What connects us all in art is this idea that life is tough, and that’s what I want to bring to my work. So people don’t feel like they look up in awe of my capability, but more they identify and say, “Oh, that’s the guy who’s been through a lot of (stuff). I’ve been through a lot of (stuff ).”
Q: Did you feel like the big man on campus returning to the “Stranger Things” set?
Harbour: The thing that was really great about it was I got to see my own face again. And to come back to Hopper, certainly, but we all have such a familial relationship. I’ve tried to keep my business a little bit from the kids and then it suddenly just became the running joke that everybody would be like, ‘Hey, Hellboy.’ We’re always (messing) around in that way.