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 played supporting roles in films such as Brokeback Mountain (2005), Awake (2007), Revolutionary Road (2008), State of Play (2009), W.E. (2011), A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014), Black Mass (2015), Suicide Squad (2016), Sleepless (2017), No Sudden Move (2021), and Gran Turismo (2023), and starring roles as the title character in Hellboy (2019) and Santa Claus in Violent Night (2022); in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Harbour has played Red Guardian in the film Black Widow (2021) and the animated series What If...? (2025).

Harbour 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 in 2018, two Emmy Award nominations and a Golden Globe Award nomination.

Early life

David Kenneth Harbour was born on April 10, 1975, in White Plains, New York, to parents Kenneth and Nancy (née Riley) Harbour. Both of his parents 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. Harbour graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1997. While at Dartmouth, Harbour majored in drama and Italian, and was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.

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 in a production 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.

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 a starring role 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.

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	Santa Claus
2023	We Have a Ghost	Ernest the Ghost
	Gran Turismo	Jack Salter
2025	Levon's Trade	0TBA	Filming
	Thunderbolts*	Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian

Television

David Harbour and Millie Bobby Brown in 2016

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
0TBA	My Dentist's Murder Trial	0TBA	Lead role, also executive producer

Theatre

Video games

Awards and nominations

See also

In Spanish: David Harbour para niños In Spanish: David Harbour para niños