BY CLARA SEELY-KATZ

Going into my interview with David Harbour, I had to quell my nerves and excitement more than usual. Harbour is one of the actors whose performances I tend to feel moved by the most. Possibly because he happens to take on roles that address the meaning of life, coming into oneself, and family – all things I struggle with myself.

That being said, just because someone is a great actor with a history of strong and moving performances doesn’t mean they are the best person, or even just a good one, to converse with. In this case, I can say with a pretty high level of certainty that David Harbour is not only an incredible actor but a kind and intelligent person, someone anyone would be lucky to have a genuine conversation with.

Harbour became an actor because of its medicinal properties in regard to his mental health. Acting is what he feels helps him most mentally and is what gives him the outlook on life he has now: that it is good to determine your own narrative but also good to accept that whichever narrative you choose is mostly arbitrary. And, that also sometimes it is nice to just be a “worker working,” as he says, to simply be a person among people. Recently we have all been reading and writing about the toll that recent events have had on all of our wellness, but really, the constant mixup of reality and the existential dread that accompanies it has been seemingly the human condition for as long as humans could think. In a time like this, which is pretty much like every other time, having artists like Harbour who want to explore the fear, the darkness, and the dread is what we need as a society to continue to push forward and grow without shutting down with panic.

From what I gathered, I think he is also the kind of person who would not want me to drivel on about his accolades, his wisdom, or how his down-to-earth attitude about his acting career is refreshing, so you can read the interview and make that judgment for yourself. All I will say, however, is that Harbour has a multitude of upcoming projects that are sure to be definite “can’t miss” performances, like his upcoming role in Theresa Rebeck’s new play, Mad House that will be running in London this summer from June 26th to September 4th.

In our conversation, we talked at length about not only his roles in his most popular films and television series but about mental health, connecting to life and reality, and how to sustain oneself through art and artistic expression. Stranger Things season 4, in which Harbour plays Hopper, a major fan favorite, is now streaming on Netflix.

I want to know how you've been doing recently. The world has kind of been in shambles for a very long time. And I want to know how you've been handling it all?

Certain things are very challenging, but I try to maintain the perspective that there have always been existential crises throughout history, and we seem to get through them. There's a spiritual mantra I love that is the world will always be the world. It's how we live within it that allows us to function. There are so many things beyond my or anyone's control; I try to keep my focus on what I'm able to do. When I remember this, I'm able to contribute in a good way, as opposed to getting tremendously bent out of shape about things that are beyond my control.

That's an incredibly healthy mindset to have. And that actually ties into my next question: I read that you struggled a lot with mental health early on in your life. As somebody very familiar with mental health struggles, I know they never really go away. But as you get older, you learn new coping mechanisms or new ways to deal with it. I know that acting is one of your coping mechanisms, can you tell me more about that?

Yeah, I think there's such focus nowadays, in terms of mental health, on the medical model, which has occupied different places and civilizations throughout history and certainly ours. And I think there are also traditional nonmedical therapies that are terrific. I've always been a fan of psychotherapy; I think it's solved a lot more of my problems than medications. Aside from the medical model, there are other things that have worked for people throughout history that I really like. One of them is the idea of crafting a narrative for yourself and living through different narratives and thereby understanding that your life is a story. And acting has always helped me understand that.

As actors, we're able to craft these narratives for ourselves, and the narratives themselves allow us to have meaning through them. A lot of my mental health problems stem from the fact that the issue I run up against is that life has no meaning; I have no meaning. And that thought process can lead to depression or psychosis. So, having a narrative allows us to poetically shape our lives, meaning through narrative itself, and the expression of that, as an artist, has always been very healing for me. The other thing is, I just think my central nervous system may be a little more sensitive than other people's. I need to scream and yell to a certain degree; even when I'm whispering, I just need to be heard. Acting allows me that voice. So that in and of itself is very therapeutic. When I'm not acting is usually when I have the most problems. When I am working, I generally have no problem.

In a way, acting allows the actor to truly see and feel how many stories there really are and how many lives one can live, and therefore how essentially that means they can choose their own meaning?

It also makes you more empathetic and understanding that you're just one among many; your life is not so grand that you have to be depressed or elated about it. You are just a worker among workers. And that's very grounded.

If you could give one piece of advice to a young person struggling with growing pains and figuring out how to accept the realities of having to create their own meaning in the world and make peace with it all, what would you say to them?

Oh, god, that's a tall order. Truly, the thing that changed my life was psychotherapy. There are a lot of panaceas out there; there are ways to modulate depression or anxiety. But at the core of it for me is that I suffered from an inability to reconcile what I've been through and how that has shaped me. Through sharing, I have found I'm really able to process that stuff, and I'm able to embrace my narrative as opposed to having to act out the results. So, I've found that talk therapy was the answer for me. I would say to anyone: talking about yourself, whether in a therapeutic environment or nontherapeutic environment, really speaking and asking for help; trying to figure out your own traumas, what you've been through, and ways to deal with those things, but in a real verbal way, is so healing.

If you could work with another actor that you haven't acted alongside yet, who would it be? And why?

Work with another actor? Again, it's like asking for a favorite of mine. There are so many actors I love. I mean, even tonight, I'm going to see my buddy Sam Rockwell in a play again. And I've already seen the play, but I'm going again because I love his work. I think he's so alive and interesting. And I really fall in love with so many actors. The art of acting itself is so beautiful when it's done well; even when it's done poorly. The fact that people get out on a stage or get in front of a camera and they express these deep, intimate things about themselves through a mask is so, so beautiful. I tend to fall in love with whatever actor I've just watched.