Stranger Things is such a huge cultural phenomenon. What’s been the weirdest or more extreme bit of fan attention you’ve experienced so far?

[Laughs] The majority of it has been totally positive. It can get a little bit overwhelming sometimes. Because I’m a big guy, a lot of people feel they can come up to me and hit me a lot. Not in a bad way, they slap me on the shoulder and go ‘you’re great’ and I'm like ‘okay man, it hurts’. I get touched a lot. It’s generally pretty good, but sometimes I get smacked around.

**By men, mostly? **

Oh yeah, men! Mainly big, weird dudes in the East Village hitting me. I’d prefer if a woman hit me! That would be nice actually, getting slapped on the shoulder by a woman.

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**Do you mostly get male or female attention, or both? **

It's kind of both. The crazy thing about this show is that the spectrum is so wide. It’s loved by both 12-year-old boys and 70-year-old women. It’s crazy and kind of beautiful in that way. You can’t figure out who is going to [approach you]. I guess our biggest demographic is 14-, 15-year-old kids, right?

**And twenty- and thirty-somethings too. **

Because of the nostalgia thing. It really crosses so many boundaries, you can’t predict it.

**Why do you think Stranger Things, apart from the fact it has great writers, directors and cast, has been such a break-out thing? **

There are lots of easy answers, like nostalgia. ‘We love the 80s’. For me, I think it’s a story extremely well told, cinematically and writing-wise, and, not to blow my own horn, but acting-wise and on every level - it’s kind of lightning in a bottle. I almost think it could be about anything and it’d be just as good.

There’s something I very much admire about: 'enough of feeling your feelings, get shit done'

Those Duffer Brothers really know how to tell a story and I think it makes you want to watch. Stranger Things is remarkably watchable. There is a lot of good television out there, stuff that is better for you than Stranger Things, that critically people would be like ‘this is an important show’, but I would press you to find a show that’s more watchable. That’s hard to do. Some of the critics, that gave bad reviews for season 2, they were like ‘but I watched the shit out of it‘. I also think it’s an earnest story and it doesn’t make apologies for that earnestness.

Who did you look to for inspiration for Chief Jim Hopper? Is he made up of different actors, or people you know?

He’s an iconography of tropes, right? [Inspirations include] [Martin] Brody in Jaws, of course, Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones. But then the other ones that I like, which are more obscure, are old Nick Nolte cop movies where he’s drinking and mean, but he’s also great and you love him. For me, a lot of the personal characterisation revolves around my own fascination with men and my own feeling like I’m trapped in-between being a man and a boy in certain ways, and what it means to be a man. I think Jim himself is somewhat of a child.

It was terrifying to do, with the fear was that it was going to be sexualised in some way

Also, my family of origin - so my uncles and my grandfather who was an amazing man who flew gliders in World War II – came from Houston, Texas. They are rugged, masculine. I remember getting stung by a bee when I was five years old and crying, and my grandma coming over to me and – I don’t want this to be disparaged, by any means, because I’m not saying it disparaged me - but she came over and she slapped me around and said, ‘Boy, men don’t cry, men do not cry’.

Nowadays, in our world, everyone is very wet, we’re all big into 'feeling our feelings', but there’s something I very much admire about: 'enough of feeling your feelings, get shit done'. I think Jim has that aspect to him, I really love that. I love those guys I grew up with, my uncles and grandad. They weren’t always the nicest guys, they wouldn’t cry, but they were decent, good people.

**For the father/daughter relationship with Eleven [Millie Bobby Brown], where did you look for inspiration? **

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That honestly has been the hardest thing for me [to do], in my career. I wish you were a fly on the wall for my therapy sessions. I had to come up with something very personal for that. I don’t have a child, I’ve never had a child, I don’t hang out with twelve year olds. So I had to draw on some personal experiences of parenting and do a very sophisticated substitution. That relationship plays on so many different levels. It was terrifying to do, with the fear was that it was going to be sexualised in some way.

With Finn and Gaten and all those kids, they still fart during takes. There’s still a lot of nonsense with hormonal boys

On one level he’s caring for and raising El and on the other level, he's locking a girl in a cabin the woods. That particular image is so bold. I was like, ‘goddamn, I hope they don’t think he’s a horrible creep’. So I had to work a lot on not sentimentalising that, not making it saccharine, that would have been creepy. I had to really treat her as an equal, like a good father would treat his daughter. But he’s also deeply flawed and doesn’t really know how to deal with children. It was my toughest challenge this season.

Were there any lighter moments? The kids all seem really fun.

[Laughs] They’re horrible! They’re awful.

Any silly moments with Millie?

Honestly, Millie and I were pretty serious. I’m protective of her. I want her to grow up to become Meryl Steep. I don’t want her in rehab at 20, or whatever, because she’s a child star. I know she’s super talented, but they all were talented and there is this trajectory of tension and spotlight placed on a young, developing person, which, to me, is terrifying, seen through parental eyes.

I said to her at the beginning of the season, ‘Look, I know everybody thinks you're great and I think you’re great too, but let’s really give these characters the respect that they deserve. Let’s not be so cutesy, because this relationship is important and this script is important and let’s buckle down and do work’. And she was game. So a lot of the work, this season in particular, was kind of serious work.

With the other [Stranger Things] kids, I am able to let loose. With Finn [Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler] and Gaten [Matarazzo, who plays Dustin Henderson] and all those kids, they still fart during takes, you know what I mean? There’s still a lot of nonsense with hormonal boys, that is like, awful. I had to set a lot of boundaries around them, asking me about girls and stuff. I was like ‘no, that is not going to happen, I’m walking away right now, this does not happen when I do movies with Denzel Washington, this is weird'.

** I can believe that! For your upcoming lead role in Hellboy, is it true that you've been training intensively with Hollywood trainer Don Saladino?**

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Here’s the thing about the training, there’s so much fake news around this. I did a lot of training, but the training was for strength and power. In terms of the actual body aesthetic - there’s a lot of prosthetics, it’s, like, not me! But I did a lot of training to be able to do the stunts in the movie. He’s jumping, he’s punching, he’s rolling, he’s doing all kinds of crazy stuff and I had to do power lifting and things to develop power strength. Hellboy would not be like Hopper, Hellboy would have a certain power to him. So yeah, I did a lot of training with Don who is amazing. But my diet did not change dramatically and the love handles are a little weaker, but they’re still around.

I had an acting teacher who was 80 years old and she would look at me sometimes and I would be like, ‘you’re the sexiest person I’ve ever seen’

**People seem to love your 'dad bod' on social media… **

I was so gratified that finally I’m being objectified by society because I’m fat as opposed to in spite of it. What a role to be objectified for! I can eat all the French fries I want and everybody is still like ‘you’re beautiful’. What a wonderful world we live in.

**Are there any foods that you have now decided to cut out forever, because you discovered during training just how bad they are for you and your figure? **

No, not really. I’m getting older now, so I have to start thinking about that stuff, but, in general, when you’re shooting, things go out the window. I’m waking up at four in the morning, shooting all day and then going home, so I can’t do the grilled chicken and broccoli - I have to drink a Coke and eat a Snickers bar to get through the day.

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**Was there one exercise that you'd recommend our readers do to become stronger really quickly? **

I know exactly what you should do. If you want to really get in shape and get strong, there’s these things called ‘sleds’. You take a weighted sled and you just push it across the floor and then you drag it back. And, basically, if you do that for 20 minutes a day, you’ll look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you put enough weight on it, it’s the hardest thing in the world. It works every muscle group at once and your body reacts to the pain in a certain way. When you push and pull heavy things, your body thinks it’s going to die and so it’s like, ‘I better get bigger, in case we do that tomorrow’.

The other thing you could do is crawl around on the floor with your knees up for 20 minutes, back and forth, up and down, side to side, like a crawl with your knees off the ground, like this [demonstrates]. You do that for 20 minutes a day and you sled for 20 minutes a day, and you’ll look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club in no time, I promise you.

Moving back to what you just said about becoming a sex symbol -

[Laughs]

**- in your forties.

** Amazing.

I think Joyce is super sexy and we’ll see how Hopper feels about that moving forward

How can we change the entertainment industry, so that more women can break through as sex symbols in their forties?

Look, I’m sorry, this is so cliché, but I will say it: the biggest erogenous zone of the body is the brain. Truly, the thing that makes human beings sexy is what they think, or what they experience and how they express themselves and the aesthetics of age, or skin, or whatever. If you see something behind someone’s eyes, I think that’s what turns me on. That’s intelligence, bravery, courage, power and perversity, not necessarily sexual perversity, but in terms of having a point of view on the world. I find Judi Dench damn attractive; I still find Helen Mirren a goddess. I even had an acting teacher who taught me when she was 80 years old and I remember she would look at me sometimes and I would be like, ‘you’re the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen’.

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The ones that are really cute, the young men and women, once you’ve made out with them once or whatever, it’s not that fun. What’s really fun is somebody who thinks. What’s really fun is somebody who’s creative, who’s crazy, who’s wild. I don’t understand why we don’t think that about men and women. I do think, beyond the dad bod, that people know I’m a little crazy and I think that’s why they think I’m sexy [laughs].

Perhaps changes could be made at the casting stage in TV and cinema too, in terms of the age of lead actresses?

Winona [Ryder, Joyce] is, most likely, the highest paid member of the Stranger Things cast and is number one on the call sheet, and she is the oldest person and a super sexy strong woman. The woman value of Stranger Things is amazing. I think Joyce is super sexy and we’ll see how Hopper feels about that moving forward.

With all the discussion about women in the industry now, I’m hoping that a lot of those things continue to change. I would like to see a lot more women in powerful, creative positions in Hollywood. Not to be sexist, I think women in charge are great. Women are different to men in certain ways, and, in my mind, more capable of running things in a better way. I just like when I’ve had women in charge in my life at various points. Culturally, I hope a lot of things change and it seems like they're beginning to.

**You've said in the past that Hopper fights for justice, rather than self-preservation and will sacrifice himself for justice. **

Correct.

**And that seems to be a character trait you have too, reflected by your powerful speech at the SAG Awards 2017, which many took to be a political response to the times you're living through in the US. You showed that you’d put yourself out there and say what needs to be said. Is there anything you think particularly needs to be said at the moment, almost a year on? Perhaps to President Donald Trump? **

I think there are a couple of different sins that are being committed in the US. I think that Jesus said that the ultimate sin was pride, because without it, no other sin could exist. I think, certainly, the structure that Trump lives in is some kind of world of tremendous pride, tremendous ego and tremendous unwillingness to be human and to realise that he makes mistakes and that he could be a human being like the rest of us, as opposed to this caricature, of an alpha or something. I mean, I would really encourage him to admit mistakes and to come back to being a human being again, as opposed to this thing.

The second sin in America today is greed and I’ve never really understood either of them. I understand taking pride in what you do, but I’ve never understood tremendous ego and tremendous greed. I’m very naive. Even with my speech and stuff, I do approach the world in a very naive way. I don’t understand the sophistications of politics, or the dynamics of economies and the way things have to work, but I do believe in common sense. I do believe in things like sharing and things about shared humanity or the fact that even if people have different skin colours, they are human beings, we’re all human beings together.

**Last question: what do you think about the phenomenon surrounding Steve [Joe Keery's character]'s hair? **

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[Laughs] I will say this about Joe Keery: the one problem that I have with him is that he is clearly extremely jealous of me. The reason is - I’ve figured it out - I have so little hair that the amount of time I spend in the hair chair in the morning is three minutes and he’s in there for hours. I’ve got it now Joe and I just want to say to Joe that I’m sorry.

**So, he doesn't just spray a bit of hairspray and go? **

That guy, he relaxes, he lies back and puts on Led Zeppelin and they go for hours. I’m there and the stylists are like, ‘there’s nothing we can do with this’.

Watch David Harbour in Stranger Things season 2. Hellboy is scheduled for US release 11 January 2019. UK release date has not yet been confirmed. British GQ interviewed David at the Dubai International Film Festival

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