‘Black Widow’s’ David Harbour Loved Acting Opposite Rachel Weisz: « I Adore Her »


David Harbour has the range, and that’ll be evident to every single person who sees Black Widow. The man is way more than just the gruff, small town police chief he plays in Stranger Things. He’s also a burly Russian super-soldier with major delusions of grandeur and a deranged idea of fatherhood. He’s the Red Guardian (a.k.a. Alexei Shostakov), and he’s about to be your new favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe weirdo.

Harbour’s turn towards the comedic shouldn’t come as a surprise, though—and it won’t if you’re familiar with the engrossing, delightful, and deranged Netflix mockumentary Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein. That absolutely random but definitely essential comedy special proved that Harbour can be equally goofy and imposing.

As Alexei Shostakov, Harbour gets to revel in the middle ground between Jim Hopper’s disastrous action man / unlikely father figure and all of the actor’s more comedic performances. Playing Alexei lets Harbour stretch out and flex those muscles—muscles that are covered in prison tatts. Prior to Black Widow’s release, David Harbour spoke with Decider about differentiating his two super dads, making movie magic with Rachel Weisz, and turning looks as Jim Hopper.


Decider: Alexei is such a far cry from Hopper on Stranger Things. Your role in Black Widow is so much more comedic, which may surprise some. Are you excited for people to see that side of you?

David Harbour: Yeah, excited and nervous, I guess, because people do want to put you in a box in terms of what you do and what you do well. But this was enjoyable and a lot of it came naturally as a result of the connections that I have with Scarlett [Johansson], Florence [Pugh], Rachel [Weisz]. They’re such silly—we get together, we just got really silly in a really fun, sweet way. [Alexei is] complex too. He does do some silly things, but they’re all with the intention of connecting with these people, but veiled in this tremendous narcissism where he can’t even see that anyone wouldn’t see how brilliant he is. Those sort of situations are so fun to play, because the comedy is not telling jokes. You’re showing a guy who’s just clueless and an idiot, but it’s really fun.

Black Widow - David Harbour as Red Guardian
Photo: Disney

How much of Alexei’s comedy came from you, and how much came from the way the character was written?

The script was very good, very funny. When I read it, I was like, “Oh, this is great,” even the way [director Cate Shortland] pitched the character. But then once we had that, we had pre-production, a week of rehearsals, where we really dug in and changed a lot of stuff. Cate and certainly Scarlett, Florence, and Rachel were really into pulling it apart. And I think that’s where we got really personal in ways that wound up being fun. I remember Florence and I talking about, “Oh, maybe [Yelena’s] the baby [of the family] and they drive around [the neighborhood], and there’s some kind of tape that she really likes to listen to. When she can’t sleep at night, he’ll put on this audio tape, and I’ll take runs around the block and stuff.” And, in terms of [Yelena’s] trauma, how [Alexei] tries to be a good dad, and that becomes this very personal thing.

Black Widow - Red Guardian and Black Widows
Photo: Disney+

So there’s a lot of little secrets that I think you feel throughout the movie, but they’re not explicitly stated. And so we came up with all these different things. There’s even stuff where I feel like [we came up with it] on the day, maybe a couple days before. There’s an earpiece joke that Rachel and I were like, wouldn’t it be funny if [Alexei] thought he had one? We had all these moments on set, and Cate was so open to it. That was great. .

I really loved your chemistry with Rachel Weisz. When we meet Alexei, he’s kind of a goof. And then when we when we meet Melina, we expect her to also see him as a failure—but she’s actually really charmed by him. There’s a real affection there.

That is all Rachel, too. I think in the script, originally, there had been—and there’s moments of it [in the film], too—twhere she did sort of hate him and she rolled her eyes. But Rachel, when we got to working to like, we had such a connection and I just adore her. I adore her as an actress, but also as a human being. She’s really funny and sweet and a little bit weird. It’s funny because I think of her as this film star in major movies. But we talked about avant-garde theater like Antonin Artaud and Jerzy Grotowski. We had a real deep connection and then she started playing around this idea that she really loved this guy for all his weirdness. She was the only character that could really see him as this, like, fat weirdo who she just loved. And I will tell you: there is an entire other movie on the cutting room floor that is just me and Rachel flirting and doing crazy stuff. It was a lot of fun to shoot and there’s not time in the movie for it. But I’ll tell you what, man—I would love to do more Melina and Alexei stuff if there’s any future for that. I adore her.

Black Widow family at table
Photo: Disney+

You do have more Russian stuff in the future, because Stranger Things 4 will pick up with Hopper in a Russian gulag. When did you realize that connection? Did you know you were playing Red Guardian when you filmed the end of Stranger Things 3?

No, it was after we wrapped Season 3. I think Season 3 hadn’t come out, but we wrapped it and I talked to the [Duffer] brothers about the 4th season—which I lied to the press about for, like, a year and a half. But I knew that [Hopper was] going to be in this prison. In fact, I started growing the beard and the hair and then Cate Shortland called me for a meeting, probably a month later. She pitched this whole thing about this Red Guardian character, and I was like,”Wow! What do you think of the beard and the hair?” We discussed this whole guy and him being this big, crazy, Russian dude with this big beard, and she loved it.

And then as I was shooting [Black Widow], I was telling the Duffer brothers, like, “Man, I’m sorry, but I am like in a Russian prison with a long beard and long hair and [Black Widow is] gonna come out probably around the same time [as Stranger Things]. They’re two big genre things, man. I cannot look the same in both. And so the Duffers and I came up with this idea: in some gulags, they shave your head. It’s this humiliating thing they would do to men. I was like, oh, yeah, let’s do this whole shaved head thing and I slimmed down a tremendous amount. Then I kept taking pictures of the [Black Widow] set with my iPhone, which you’re not supposed to do on Marvel movies. They always confiscate your phone, but I would go around, take a picture and be like, “Guys, look: there’s orange here so don’t do orange.” And they’d be like, “Okay.” So there’s lots of production design elements and things to make them as different as possible. It was a horrible coincidence that the internet has made me pay for for a year now, and hopefully it will all be over once they both come out.

Hopper in Stranger Things 4 teaser
Photo: Netflix

Hopper had this major fashion moment in Stranger Things 3 with his Miami Vice Hawaiian shirt. Are there any potential Hopper fashion moments coming in Season 4?

God, yes. In fact, I can’t wait to see it [on TV]. We joke around on set that the Duffers are writing now for the Funko Pops of the characters, like each season has a different Funko Pop. And this season, Hopper has — you’ve seen the look with him in the prison with shaved head and the prison outfit and the pickaxe. But man, there is another moment in this season where I, when I read it, I just was like, “Yes! You did it!” I will give you a little bit of a spoiler, which you can roll around in your brain. It’s not a spoiler, but in terms of fashion: we really pay this off about Hopper, the Russians calling him the American. And I’ll just say that we pay that off in spades in every way. So here’s my little mini weird spoiler. Doesn’t mean anything just yet, but you’ll get it once you see it. I cannot wait.”

Black Widow is available to stream now on Disney+ with Premier Access

Stream Black Widow on Disney+ with Premier Access

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