David Harbour facts for kids

Quick facts for kids David Harbour
Harbour at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con
Born	David Kenneth Harbour (1975-04-10) April 10, 1975 (age 49) White Plains, New York, U.S.
Education	Dartmouth College (BA)
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1994–present
Spouse(s)	Lily Allen ​ (m. 2020)​

David Kenneth Harbour (born April 10, 1975) is an American actor. He has received nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award and a Golden Globe Award.

He began his career acting in Shakespearean theatre productions. After his professional debut on Broadway in the 1999 revival of The Rainmaker, he was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in a production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. He made his television debut on Law & Order in 1999 and had supporting roles in films such as Brokeback Mountain (2005), Revolutionary Road (2008) and Black Mass (2015).

Harbour had his breakthrough role as Elliot Hirsch in the HBO political drama series The Newsroom and gained global recognition for his portrayal of Jim Hopper in the Netflix science fiction series Stranger Things (2016–present), for which he received a Critics' Choice Television Award as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Award. His starring film roles include the title character in Hellboy (2019), Nikamund the Red / Santa Claus in Violent Night (2022) and a former racer in the sports film Gran Turismo (2023). In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Harbour has played Red Guardian in the film Black Widow (2021) and will reprise his role in Thunderbolts* (2025).

Early life

Harbour was born in White Plains, New York, to Kenneth and Nancy (née Riley) Harbour, both of whom work in real estate—his mother in residential and his father in commercial. He attended Byram Hills High School in Armonk, New York, along with actors Sean Maher and Eyal Podell. He graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1997, where he majored in drama and Italian and was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.

As a young man in New York City, David Harbour frequented and participated in gambling at underground poker clubs, and attests that he personally knew the gangster who John Malkovich's character "Teddy KGB" was based on in the 1998 film Rounders.

Career

Harbour at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival

From 1994 to 1997, Harbour performed with The Theater at Monmouth at Cumston Hall in Monmouth, ME, where he acted in Shakespearian productions such as The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, The Winter's Tale, and Hamlet. Harbour began acting professionally on Broadway in 1999, in the revival of The Rainmaker. He made his television debut that year on the television show Law & Order, playing a waiter. He appeared again in 2002 in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, playing a child murderer. He had the recurring role of MI6 agent Roger Anderson in the ABC series Pan Am. In 2005, he was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance as Nick in the revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.

Harbour is also known for his role as CIA Agent Gregg Beam in Quantum of Solace, as Shep Campbell in Revolutionary Road, and as Russell Crowe's source in State of Play. ..... His other film credits include Brokeback Mountain, The Green Hornet, End of Watch, and Between Us. In 2013, he had a small role of a head doctor in the television series Elementary. From 2012 to 2014, he also had the recurring role of Elliot Hirsch in The Newsroom.

David Harbour and Millie Bobby Brown in 2016

In 2014, Harbour played the recurring character of Dr. Reed Akley in the first season of the historical drama series Manhattan. In 2015, he was cast as Chief Jim Hopper in the Netflix science fiction horror series Stranger Things. For that role, he has received nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (2017 and 2018) and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film (2018). He won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series (2017) along with the rest of the cast.

Harbour starred as the title character in the superhero reboot film Hellboy (2019). He most recently portrayed Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Black Widow (2021), and will reprise the role in the upcoming Thunderbolts* (2025). He also had starring roles in Christmas action comedy film Violent Night (2022), and in the Neill Blomkamp sports film Gran Turismo (2023) based on the PlayStation video game series of the same name.

Personal life

Harbour had relationships with Alison Sudol and Julia Stiles. Since 2019, he has been in a relationship with singer Lily Allen. They made their red carpet debut during the 26th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. They married on September 7, 2020, in Las Vegas in a wedding officiated by an Elvis impersonator. The couple share a Brownstone house in Brooklyn and worked with the architect Ben Bischoff.

Harbour previously followed several religions, including Catholicism and Buddhism. He is a former believer in the paranormal.

In an interview with The Guardian on his role in Black Widow in July 2021, Harbour said he was a socialist: "I don't know that there's anyone who could disagree with socialist ideology"; and later, "The idea of a kindergarten-type society where we share things is my ideal society—as opposed to this world where we're hunting and killing and destroying for our own personal hoarding, our own personal greed."

..... He began drinking as a teenager and the habit worsened during college. He decided to stop drinking after feeling "very lonely and needing a different direction in my life", and has said, "I enjoy consciousness too much now" to drink again.

At age 26, Harbour was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Filmography

Film

Film or show that is yet to be released

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2004	Kinsey	Robert Kinsey
2005	Confess	FBI Agent McAllister
	Brokeback Mountain	Randall Malone
	War of the Worlds	Dock Worker	Deleted scene
2006	The Wedding Weekend	David
2007	Awake	Dracula
2008	Revolutionary Road	Shep Campbell
	Quantum of Solace	Gregg Beam
2009	State of Play	PointCorp Insider
2010	Every Day	Brian
2011	The Green Hornet	D.A. Frank Scanlon
	W.E.	Ernest Simpson
	Thin Ice	Bob Egan	originally released as The Convincer
2012	End of Watch	Van Hauser
	Between Us	Joel
	Knife Fight	Stephen Green
2013	Snitch	Jay Price
	Parkland	James Gordon Shanklin
2014	X/Y	Todd
	A Walk Among the Tombstones	Ray
	The Equalizer	Frank Masters
2015	Black Mass	John Morris
2016	Suicide Squad	Dexter Tolliver
2017	Sleepless	Doug Dennison
2018	Human Affairs	Ronnie
2019	Hellboy	Hellboy
	Frankenstein's Monster's Monster, Frankenstein	David Harbour III / Jr. / Frankenstein	Short film
2020	Extraction	Gaspar
2021	No Sudden Move	Matt Wertz
	Black Widow	Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian
2022	Violent Night	Nikamund the Red / Santa Claus
2023	We Have a Ghost	Ernest the Ghost
	Gran Turismo	Jack Salter
2024	Night of the Zoopocalypse	Dan (voice)
2025	Levon's Trade	TBA	Post-production
	Thunderbolts*	Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1999, 2008	Law & Order	Mike	Episode: "Patsy"
		Jay Carlin	Episode: "Submission"
2002	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Terry Jessup	Episode: "Dolls"
2003	Hack	Christopher Clark	Episode: "Presumed Guilty"
2004, 2009	Law & Order: Criminal Intent	Wesley John Kenderson	Episode: "Silver Lining"
		Paul Devildis	Episode: "Family Values"
2007	The Unit	Gary Weber	Episode: "Five Brothers"
2009	Lie to Me	Frank Ambrose	Episode: "The Better Half"
	Royal Pains	Dan Samuels	Episode: "It's Like Jamais Vu All Over Again"
2011–2012	Pan Am	Roger Anderson	6 episodes
2012	Midnight Sun	Ethan Davies	Unsold NBC TV pilot
	Blue	Cooper	3 episodes
2012–2014	The Newsroom	Elliot Hirsch	10 episodes
2013	Elementary	Dr. Mason Baldwin	Episode: "Lesser Evils"
2014	Rake	David Potter	11 episodes
	Manhattan	Dr. Reed Akley	10 episodes
2014–2015	State of Affairs	David Patrick	Main role
2015–2016	Banshee	Robert Dalton	2 episodes
2016	Crisis in Six Scenes	Vic	Episode: "#1.2"
2016–present	Stranger Things	Jim Hopper	Main role
2018	... History	Vietnam Memorial Head	Episode: "Underdogs"
	Animals	Hawk	Voice, episode: "Roachella"
2019	El Hormiguero 3.0	Himself (guest)	Episode: "David Harbour"
	Saturday Night Live	Himself (host)	Episode: "David Harbour/Camila Cabello"
2020	The Simpsons	Fred Kranepool	Voice, episode: "Undercover Burns"
2021	Big City Greens	Rick	Voice, episode: "The Van"
	Q-Force	Agent Rick Buck	Voice
	Star Wars: Visions	Tajin	Voice, episode: "The Elder"; english dub
2024	Creature Commandos	Eric Frankenstein	Voice; main role
	What If...?	Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian	Voice; post-production

Theatre

Video games

Awards and nominations

See also

In Spanish: David Harbour para niños