Stranger Still

For the past few years, David Harbour hasbeen trying to keep the law—and a hold on reality—in the streets of Hawkins, Indiana. As Stranger Things begins its third season, MAXIMILLIAN POTTER talks to the actor about his own journey to the Upside Down and back.

David Harbour hated Stranger Things. The title, that is. Initially the Netflix series was called Montauk, after the show’s original setting, but logistical changes forced the show’s creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, to choose a new location—they decided to shoot it in Atlanta—and to change the title. Harbour, who had been cast as police chief Jim Hopper, was not pleased, a sentiment he made abundantly clear in an email to the Duffer brothers.

“We got this long email from him complaining about the title,” Matt Duffer tells me. “About how awful it was, and how it was going to destroy the show. If something feels off to him, he says so and we talk about it and it results in a stronger series. It’s not bitching and moaning. It’s just David. There’s no filter. I like to work with people like that. You know what they’re thinking the whole time, as long as it’s coming from a good place, and with David, it’s always coming from a good place, because he cares.”

Oh, Harbour cared all right. “I loved the title Montauk,” he says. “I thought it was very strong and powerful, and then when I heard Stranger Things, it sounded hokey.” Eventually, Harbour says, “seeing it with the font and moving titles, it all made sense.” Audiences and critics agreed. Since its debut three years ago, the hit series has received a number of awards. Harbour himself has been nominated twice for an Emmy and once for a Golden Globe.