David Harbour has dropped out of an upcoming movie starring Pedro Pascal, Eva Victor, Olivia Wilde, and Matthew Lillard, allegedly to rest after feeling “overwhelmed” by the wrapping up of Netflix show Stranger Things.
Harbour, who plays Jim Hopper in Stranger Things, has exited Behemoth!, the drama from Rogue One writer and Andor creator Tony Gilroy, Variety confirmed.
Variety said “multiple insiders familiar with the project said Harbour was overwhelmed by the series wrap of Stranger Things — a monthslong episodic rollout and global water cooler moment with intense press scrutiny — and stepped away from the project to rest.”
It is not known who will now play David Harbour’s recast character.
Stranger Things came to an end on New Year’s Eve with a 2-hour finale that saw Hopper and the rest of the characters finally defeat Vecna. It closes the door on a show that began on Netflix nearly a decade ago, with the weight of expectation of a huge online fandom that has spent years digging through every detail.
In June last year, Harbour indicated that he was ready to be hanging up the badge. "You get to a certain point where you’re like, 'How much more story is there?' You’re having to play a lot of the same beat," Harbour told Scarlett Johansson during a conversation for Interview Magazine. "And there’s a feeling where you’re like, 'I want to take a risk. I want to do something that people haven’t seen me do before.' So yeah, after 10 years, it’s like, 'Okay.'"
Two years prior, Harbour said he didn’t want to be tied to the Netflix show forever, and even suggested he’d give up TV acting altogether once Stranger Things wrapped up.
He said: "It’s a funny position I’m in, which I never thought I would be in. The first year of Stranger Things, I remember having a discussion with a publicist and her saying: ‘maybe you don’t want to be associated with the show so much.'
"I was like, ‘Why? I love this show. I love the character.’ And I do love the show. And I do love the character. But I don’t want to be just that character. I don’t want to be just that guy."
Harbour compared himself to George Clooney during his time playing Doug Ross on medical drama series ER, saying the now incredibly successful and famous film star was once just "the guy from ER.”
"I'm trying to navigate some of that, and it’s tricky because you don’t want to s**t on the people that love you for this thing that you did that you also love," Harbour added.
"But at the same time, you kind of want to leave the nest. I got more in me. I got different stuff in me, and I want you guys to see that. I don’t want people yelling ‘Hopper’ on the street every five minutes the rest of my life."
In November, Harbour and Eleven actress Millie Bobby Brown appeared at a high-profile Stranger Things Season 5 red carpet premiere, posing together for a series of cosy photos but steering clear of media interviews.
At the same event, director Shawn Levy and Stranger Things co-creator Matt Duffer were both asked about the situation between the series' stars, following the publication just days earlier of a Daily Mail report that stated Brown had lodged "harassment and bullying" complaints against Harbour and had subsequently been accompanied by a personal assistant whenever on set.
Harbour plays Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and starred in last year’s Thunderbolts*. He is set to reprise the role in Avengers: Doomsday, due out this December.
Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
