David Harbour suddenly finds himself in the thick of two huge franchises. On Stranger Things, he’s playing Sheriff Jim Hopper, a major character thought dead until Netflix released a teaser revealing he’ll start out season 4 as a prisoner in Soviet Russia:
Strangely enough, he’s also playing a Russian ex-superhero named Alexei in Black Widow, a major tentpole movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “I know, it is a very surprising, annoying coincidence, and I apologize to the entire internet,” Harbour told Entertainment Weekly with a laugh. “There is no rhyme or reason for it, I promise you. There’s no crossover event between Stranger Things and the MCU.”
"I mean, I do look very different in them. One of them, I’m 270 pounds and got a beard and thick, long hair, and the other one I’m like 200 pounds and have no hair."
Nice try, Harbour. We all know that Sheriff Hopper is taken to the Soviet Union in the ’80s, becomes the superhero Red Guardian, starts working with Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), Yelena (Florence Pugh) and Melina (Rachel Weisz), and by the time Black Widow happens (after Captain America: Civil War but before Avengers: Infinity War), he’s fully gone native, grown a lot more hair and has put on some extra weight.
Or that’s what we can tell ourselves until Black Widow hits theaters, which may be a while. The movie was originally going to come out on May 1, but is one of several major movies pushed back due to the current Coronavirus pandemic. Stranger Things, which is in the midst of shooting its fourth season, has shut down for two weeks (we’ll see if it gets extended beyond that), with producer Shawn Levy confirming to Variety that Netflix will pay the crew members during the hiatus. “We shared the news with our cast and crew that we would be pausing production out of an abundance of caution,” he said. “There were no sick crew members, no one was exhibiting symptoms, but it seemed like the right thing to do.”
Obviously, we’re hoping that everyone involved with both productions is staying safe. But an interesting side effect of this is that it’s now possible (if not likely) for Stranger Things and Black Widow to come out around the same time, which would add fuel to the fire of the crossover theory. We’ll keep hope alive until we’re told otherwise.
And wait, wasn’t the Russian scientist from Stranger Things season 3 named Dr. Alexei? Oh my god, Hopper stole the name and made up a new identity. HOW DEEP DOES THIS THING GO?
Harbour, for his part, is very excited about playing Alexei, who totally isn’t Sheriff Hopper in disguise. “I think I’m biased, but I think it’s the best character in all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe,” he said. “I mean, he is a narcissist, so it’s very appropriate that I’m playing him and that I think that. But he’s just got so many layers. On one level, he’s your classic superhero badass character, but then when you meet him, he has this need to be liked, and he wants to be thought of as funny and a big shot — which he isn’t.”
"Had they offered me a crappy part in a mediocre movie, I probably would’ve taken that too. But the fact of the matter is the script was really damn good, and the part is extraordinary."
The only thing Harbour wasn’t crazy about on the set of Black Widow? The action scenes. “I mean, I just got beat up constantly,” he recalled. “That s— is awful. Anybody who tells you, ‘Oh yeah, man, I love doing stunts,’ that is nonsense. Stop it.”
The movie does sound pretty great, as does Stranger Things season 4. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to watch either.
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