David Harbour.Photo: Getty Images
David Harbourfeels like a changed man thanks to his role of Jim Hopper onStranger Things.
“I’m very much a New York sort of city rat. I liked my freedom, my independence. And then it was really this part that did change a lot of that perspective,” he explained. “The show sort of opened my heart in a lot of different ways, and one of the ways that it did was it started to make me realize how thin my existence was without a family.”
David Harbour in Stranger Things.Netflix
Harbour went on to say that his character “maturing into a father” on-screen was also “something clearly my subconscious was crying out to do.”
“I think that’s partially why things are so successful because there’s some unique alchemy between the performer and the role,” Harbour continued. “I feel like there was something in Hopper that had a deep need for family, and there was something in me that had it too but that I wasn’t even aware of.”
“As I began to explore this role, the role allowed me to do that in my real life,” he said.
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While Hopper may have sparked Harbour’s quest into fatherhood, Allen’s daughtershelped him realizethat he wanted to marry their mom.
During an appearance onJimmy Kimmel Live!last month, Harbour — whotied the knotwith Allen, 36, last September — revealed that the two girls played an important part in the couple’s decision to wed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We got engaged right before the pandemic. Then the pandemic hit and nothing was happening,” theBlack Widowstar said of his wedding plans with Allen.
“We were riding around beginning of pandemic — she has two kids, these beautiful daughters, 8 and 9 — and we were riding bikes out in the country trying to figure out what we were gonna do for the next year or however long it was going to take. And the little one was riding along and she was going like, ‘David, dad, David, dad.’ Because the D got her confused,” he recalled. “And the older one got very upset with that, which I understand. She was like, ‘He’s not our dad! He’s not our dad!’ "
Harbour continued: “And then younger one was like, ‘Well what is he? He’s kind of our dad.’ She’s like, ‘No he’s not, he’s our stepdad.’ And she goes, ‘What is he?’ And she goes, ‘He’s just some guy in our lives!’ "
David Harbour and Lily Allen.Amy Sussman/WireImage
According to Harbour, that conversation confirmed it was time for him to take the next step.
“I was like, ‘I need to marry this woman,’ " he joked. “Because the emotional fallout … "
Harbour — who was firstromantically linkedto Allen in January 2019 — also sang his wife’s praises during conversation with PEOPLE in December.
“She really is just a deeply kind individual and I love that about her,” he added.
source: people.com
