RED ALERT

AFTER ESCAPING RUSSIAN PRISONS AS RED GUARDIAN IN BLACK WIDOW AND BATTLING THE UPSIDE DOWN AS CHIEF JIM HOPPER IN STRANGER THINGS, DAVID HARBOUR IS NOW SUITED AND BOOTED AS SANTA CLAUS IN COMEDY ACTION-THRILLER VIOLENT NIGHT. TOTAL FILM TALKS TO THE STAR WHOSE HALTING CAREER BECAME ALL GREEN LIGHTS WHEN HE STARTED SEEING RED IN HIS FORTIES...

- JAMIE GRAHAM

You wouldn’t think that David Harbour is a fan of Christmas movies. With his denim jacket and white tee, his mane of hair and rocker’s ’tache, he looks like a cross between Bruce Springsteen and James Hetfield, his gruff, rugged, man’sman image completed by a huge cigar clamped in his right fist.

“I am a fan of Christmas movies,” he grins with a magnanimous wave of his cigar. “My favourite is Miracle On 34th Street, the original one, in black-and-white – or the crappy colourised version – about Macy’s and everything. I love that movie. As a kid, it just blew my mind. I remember watching that and thinking, ‘Santa Claus is real! He’s real!’”

So when Harbour was offered the chance to actually appear in a Christmas film, as Santa, there was only ever going to be one answer. Hence him today sitting in a Brooklyn studio next to a Christmas tree lit by a twirl of fairy lights.

“I feel like doing a Christmas movie is a bit of a rite of passage for actors,” he muses. “I mean, it’s sort of a fun thing to have in your oeuvre. You know, I never thought it would be on the cards [for me]. I don’t think it’s really my brand, the jolly, sweet guy. But this combines a lot of heart and a lot of simmering rage that I feel I can work through.”

Harbour’s laugh rolls around the studio, and you’ll be in on the joke once you’ve seen Violent Night. Directed by Tommy Wirkola, who gave us Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and Nazi zombies in the Dead Snow