David Harbour - 'DTF St. Louis'

27:54I really needed some money to scrape I was 40 and I like I needed to scrape together some money at 40 you kind of need to scrape together some money and I was like so I didn't have another season of that and then I got sent this script and I read it and I really thought it was fantastic. And then so immediately I was like, there's no way they're going to cast me. Because at the time, Netflix series had been House of Cards, where you have movie stars in the lead, Orange is the New Black, again, like big TV stars in the leads. I forget what else they had, but it was like, you're not going to give the lead adult in a Netflix show to like an unknown supporting actor.

28:34What are you talking about? So I went in, they were like, no the casting people are really into you they really think you can get this this is carmen cuba this is carmen yeah who would have known you from theater yeah she knew me from theater i forget what specifically from theater and then something else as well maybe manhattan but she really was very championing me and i was like what are you talking about like everybody talks nonsense in this town you know how it is everybody's like we love him so much send him in just if he really we love him and then you know they don't they just try to cover their asses or whatever so i was like i'll go read and i went in and read but i remember i wore a baseball cap so that i you couldn't really see my eyes because i thought he was a drunk and he wouldn't want people to see his bloodshot eyes can i just interject yeah of course what were you do you remember what they had you read yes it was the first scene in the pilot which you see well not the not when i wake up but when I'm with her and I say 99 out of 100 times a kid goes missing kids with a parent or relative that was one big line I remember that line well I can't believe I remember that line what else oh oh she says too she says like you know they call him they think he's a bad they call him call him a bad and I go I go is he and there it's a it's a great scene and the whole thing about somebody's hair the biggest thing that happened in this town was when she got an owl stuck in her hair so some crazy a lot like that.

30:04But it was a really fun scene. But I remember going in, I didn't even memorize the hat. The one choice I made was the hat, where I was like, I'm not going to look at this woman, because I don't want her to see my eyes or whatever. And then I just read it once, and I think it was an assistant, I don't think it was Carmen, who was taping me. They just taped it. And she said, do you want to do one maybe without the hat? And I went, nope. And I walked out, because I thought, I was like, there's no way I'm going to get this. This is a huge break. And then days later, I got a call at night from Sean Levy and the Duffers just being like, we want you.

30:42And I was like, what are you talking about? And I remember I was out in front. I was walking on Lafayette in front of the public theater. And I started screaming, like, yes, yes, yes. That's amazing. Yeah. So it was a big, that was a huge moment. so when you go to work on that like how much information people I think they know when they get your season of that show it's all at once but when you're shooting a show are you getting the whole season do you know are you talking to the duffers about where this is going or you know I guess there's no guarantee it even goes beyond a season so like I mean how how did Look, I was used to working for WGM where we don't even know what the network is.

31:29So I think we had like six of them or four of them when we started. But we sort of knew about the last two as well and sort of where the arc would end up. And it's a pretty – I knew the pretty specific arc with Hopper. Although at one point I think Hopper was maybe going to sacrifice himself. Well, I heard you thought he should. What? I heard that you thought he should. Yeah, I did think he should. Even though that would put you out of a job? No, I know. Well, at that point I didn't know that it was going to be. And it was like, I just remember thinking that once a child dies at like five, I just, I feel like, you know, as much redemption as you can have, there is some longing to be with that child.

32:13I think that never leaves people. And I think that Hopper has been slowly trying to kill himself throughout the seasons with drugs and alcohol. He can't do it. But if he could sacrifice himself in a way that we sort of do it a little bit in season three in a weird way. It's it's in a different context. But but I am. Yeah, I definitely you know, we had an arc for him and and we we knew what we were doing going in. But I didn't think it was going to get beyond season one. We shot that thing. I thought it was great, but I thought it was going to be one of these niche shows. Like and I thought would be the first show not picked up for second season by Netflix, which at the time there were shows that were even sort of like, not very well watched that were still getting picked up.

32:54But I thought we would be definitely the one that they wouldn't. And just because of the fact that it was so heavily about kids? Well, so you should have seen that premiere. I mean, I joke around with Ted Sarandas a little bit about this at the last premiere we went to because the first season was like a joke. Like it was in some place in Los Feliz that was like a bar, and we were showing it to a couple people, and then Netflix, to throw us a bone, dressed a couple people in like lab technicians. with rubber gloves to walk around and scare people. But I was like, this is just not what you do for a real show that you guys care about.

33:29They didn't know what they had. I think they didn't know what they had. They claim to me now that they were doing some kind of very sophisticated stealth marketing, but I think they didn't know what they had. So when did you first begin to appreciate that this was going to be a game changer for them, but for you? I mean, like, just as I... It came out Friday at midnight. Yeah, yeah. Saturday afternoon. I was like, holy shit. Because of social media or what? I mean, no. You were in a play at the time, right? Yeah. So I, no, basically, like, my phone has, like, 500 numbers in it from the last, like, 15, 20 years of living.

34:14Because you just get some, you know, you have to go to some event and you get the driver's number so you can meet them later. And you never erase that number. You're like, you know, you're like Dan, Dan Driver with a bunch of R's, right? And then my phone on Saturday and Sunday lit up with every single number in my phone texting me. People that I hadn't spoken to in years. High school friends, like drivers, as I say, like weird, a weird like, you know, accountant I met with years ago. a weird handyman and just saying, Stranger Things, oh my God, this is my favorite show. Oh my God, Stranger Things, oh my God.

34:54And I was like, oh, this has never happened before. This didn't happen for Manhattan. As good as it was. And I was like, this is something different. I've never felt this before. And I mean, I guess you pretty quickly find out whether it's at the stage door of the show you're in or at the coffee shop or on the street that your anonymity is gone, right? Yeah, I became famous, like, overnight. So I was doing this play, and at the time, people would always show up, see me in plays, and there'd be, like, one person at the stage door who would be like, Hey, David, like, you know, you were great in this again.

35:32We loved you in Virginia. They're like, Oh, thanks, man. It was really nice, you know. And this time it was, like, Saturday night there were 20 people waiting for me. And I was like, Whoa. they were like we just saw this show and then Sunday night there were like 50 people waiting for me and I was like what the hell is going on they're like sorry man we're all just Stranger Things fans like we didn't even see the play but we heard you were here and like I was like oh my god what is happening now that kind of sudden thing I imagine would be disorienting for anyone like how did you it sounds or you know when it's somebody else that you're watching it happen to you're like oh that must be awesome when it's you how how did you digest that i mean i think i'm still digesting it but it's definitely like like the weirdest one was um the people that you knew like i was going into the same coffee shop because i lived on the block i lived on third street at the time in new york and i go to the the coffee bean on the corner and i've been going there for like a solid like five years so like I knew all the barista girls in there and then I came in that morning and they were like can we get a picture I was like it's me the guy the slob who's been coming in here what are you talking about but there is something that you know there just becomes this image of you and then there becomes you and I think that like I've had to reconcile with what that means and sometimes it's you know usually it's very nice but it's still you know people develop a relationship with an image and that relationship can be in their bed on their computer very intimately whatever and then they can feel like they can come grab you on the street or like you know and it's just very it never gets um i don't know it it does change your relationship to the outside world.

37:31And I still struggle with that. So as the season, or as the show went along, you would still be doing other things and I guess hiatuses. And I'll just mention, I think it was, I don't know, was Suicide Squad in the works before Stranger Things or was that a result of Stranger Things? No, it shot before. It shot before. Okay, so that came out in 2016. In fact, I'll tell you a funny story about that. Please, yeah. Like, so, you know, I'm a very small part in Suicide Squad. David just, like, had a part where there's a guy who, he had this whole backstory that maybe we could have expanded. Yeah. But it was like I had sort of one monologue in this room.

38:09And I wanted to do it for David. I showed up, did it. And then Stranger Things came out. Suicide Squad was after it. But what happens on IMDb, so I wasn't even invited to premiere or anything. Like, I was a supporting character. I was a little guy. But what happens on IMDb is I guess the cast list is determined by your star meter. Okay. And so when Stranger Things came out, my star was at like one or two or three or four or something. So Suicide Squad had me, then Jared Leto, Will Smith, Marco Robby, like all these people underneath me. That's great. So Warner Brothers called and was like, will you come to the premiere?

38:51I was like, yeah, I'll come to the premiere. and I showed up at the premiere and just everybody wanted to talk to me about Stranger Things. And all these guys were getting so much and they were, David, tell us about Stranger Things because it was such a zeitgeist. Yeah, it was crazy. Okay, so then I guess maybe the first really big thing that came about because of Stranger Things would have been the reboot of Hellboy. Correct. Which, okay, so shot between seasons two and three. There's also later on a Soderbergh movie, No Sudden Move. There's, of course, the Marvel films, which Black Widow in 21, Thunderbolt's 25, coming up with Doomsday later this year.

39:33Meanwhile, I guess it wasn't like a regular – how do you plan your life when the Duffers would sometimes take quite a while to try to make a season as good as possible? But it's not on a regular – do you just have to always be available? No, no. You run things by them kind of and you go like, hey, I want to do this play. And they'll be like, okay, we're not going to go until November or whatever. And so they were very reasonable actually with scheduling. And even actually very generous. I mean I will say because I shot even Thunderbolts. I shot that during season five. Now season five was huge.

40:13Like we spent a lot of time and there were a lot of storylines. But they carved out two months for me to go shoot Thunderbolts. They could shoot around. Yeah, they were great. It's interesting because, again, from the outside, somebody might look at, wow, you're on a show that is a huge hit, five seasons over ten years. That sounds fantastic. And I'm sure in many ways it is. But I did get the sense from things you've said, which totally makes sense to me, that over the course of that long of playing a single character, which really not a ton of people have done. Like, I mean, it's a how would you describe the way that feelings evolve towards a project or a character, even when it's something that you're grateful for, you've enjoyed doing.

40:59But like, I guess relationships can change over time, right? Of course. And your relationship to the material and your growth as a human being and what your interests are. All of that changes. And the other thing is, like, I wasn't a producer on on Stranger Things. So you're just getting scripts and you just that's what you get. Yeah. And I think that that becomes – and they were very open to changing stuff and working on stuff and blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, like, it's a show that's much bigger than me. What were some of the kinds of things that you maybe expressed or were hoping for to – in terms of the way your character might evolve or things?

41:41Like, were there specific asks in a way that you might have brought to them? Yeah, for sure. I mean, we would always talk a little bit about each upcoming season. And I would also send them an email, which I'm sure they hated. Or at least, or maybe just didn't read. Because that would all be my ideas. It's like, oh, here's the David's ideas email. I mean, I definitely liked the fact that they wanted to, because we had such a complete arc in that first season. It's like, what do you do with a guy who literally wakes up? The first season is him waking up out of his trauma or whatever and reliving and taking this breath and all this stuff.

42:23So what do you do with him? And in the second season, the pairing of me and Millie was really special and that father-daughter relationship trying to be, but also his overprotectiveness of her and his bad messing it up because that was really special and really great. Season three, we talked about a summer season. And we talked about, you know, it's the 80s. Like, why don't we lean into this, like, 80s thing? And we talked about – I remember, like, having discussions. See, they do take some of my ideas. I remember discussions about Steve Harrington in a lake or something, being like, well, they should be on a lake at some point.

42:59We should do a summer season. And they were like, yeah. And we started getting into it. And then with Hopper with the shirt and the mustache and the, like, breaking people's faces and being this, you know, pig 80s magnum P.I. cop. Like, you know, so they, we had some fun with it for sure. And then even like going into season four, like I wanted to do, we had talked about this Lord of the Rings type resurrection idea for him where he ends his old ways and then is almost rebirthed. And I was like, yeah, I'll lose a bunch of weight. I'll shave my head. Like we'll do this whole, like he's a newborn baby.

43:33He's like coming back into his fucking life. And so there were lots of things that they were playful with. But at the end of the day, they have to deliver on so many character stories. You know, it's not a show about me. It's a show about all these different character stories. And they have so much pressures on them to deliver all these different things. You just can't afford to take the time that I want now as an actor and as a storyteller. And I believe it's the case, obviously, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're, during the later part of Stranger Things, starting to think, as anyone would, Like, what's a way to follow this for me that makes sense?

44:11And it does seem like it was during the run of Stranger Things that you first identified the material that ended up becoming DTF St. Louis. For sure. And was that because you were actively looking for something that you might want to produce and star in so that you had a bit more control of it? It's because I wanted to work with adults as opposed to children. and I wanted something with no monsters in it except for the specter of middle age like a belly you know I mean the weird thing about I'm I have a certain brain that likes everything so I'm so in the genre world of like you know I got stranger things, I got demagogues, I got marvel, I got you know doctor doom and the world ending events and it's like I just want to like go to the grocery store with my you know what I mean with my my screen wife and just like do something very ordinary about very, you know, ordinary people and show the extraordinary lives of just in that framework.

45:12And so that's really what, what drew me to that. And yeah, I definitely knew I wanted to play. But the other thing is I wanted to put together groups of people who I, you know, for the last 10 years I've been in this circle and I have lots of friends and people I know that I respect, that respect me. and I want to put them together and I want to be a part of that. So I have, you know, I love doing that. Well, and it's also, I guess, the first time since you got all this juice that came with Stranger Things that you could apply that and control your own fate, right? Yes, exactly. I mean, you'd never, because even after it became a hit, you were so, I mean, yes, you could come and do Marvel and other things, But like there would probably wouldn't have been enough time until you were done with Stranger Things to actually focus on something that you were also the architect of.

46:07That's very true. So final season of Stranger Things, I believe, was was shot in 2024. It's now 2020 then comes out in New Year's going into 2026. Yes. And in the meantime, you had already, if I have the chronology right, going back to like – so the spark for DTF St. Louis was a New Yorker article that – it grew beyond that. So what? You're just reading The New Yorker and you come upon something? No. There's certain themes that I want to talk about and there's certain ideas that I want to get behind. I really, and there's also TV that I like to watch and stuff that I don't like to watch. I really liked at the time, like that first season of White Lotus sort of blew me away.

46:59Him in the pool doing the ape stuff, I was just like, what are we doing in civilization here? What are we Americans doing? Right. And I just started to like, you know, ruminate on that. And I think that the weird thing about, and it's really Steve that starts, you know, and it's an ongoing relationship creatively, I hope. This is Steve Conrad. Yeah, Steve Conrad, the writer, creator. But I take him ideas, and then he'll spin them out in weird ways. And I think what we wanted to do was we wanted to have a suburban noir that didn't pay off in the way that you want it to. We wanted to be more hopeful and also more dark about human beings and about the layers underneath them.

47:49And masculinity, right? And masculinity, for sure. So it starts out for people who, if anyone hasn't seen it, get your act together. But, I mean, it basically, essentially, this is reductive, but, like, it starts out like Sunset Boulevard. Like you have the death and then you go back and try to figure out how did we get to this point, right? And in your case, just you're playing this guy Floyd Smirnich, ASL interpreter, who is kind of projects, I guess, a positive outlook but is frustrated with his life. He's got a wife and a kid but isn't happy, I guess you could say, and is working – kind of hits it off with this guy Clark, played by Jason Bateman, who's the TV weatherman, local TV weatherman.

48:43First of all, Bateman, like did you guys know each other before this? We had met several times. I did like a reading with him once and I talked to him about things, but we didn't know each other well at all. And, okay, so again, I'm just reading, from what I've read, it started out where your kind of co-conspirator in all this was going to be Pedro Pascal as producer and star. He exits, and then what made you think Jason's the guy to partner with on this? I mean, Jason's just a dream for the role. I don't know how to describe it. He's so smart about what he does and his choices. And I just think the pairing of him and me is weird because we're different but similar.

49:32We bring different things, but they really augment each other. He's also just a great partner. He really wants it to be the best, not him or whatever. He's really generous in that way. He's a director. I mean, there's just so many things. But I think this is some of the best stuff I've ever seen him do. I mean, he does something so extraordinary in so many things, like Ozark or Arrested Development or whatever. But there's something about this where he's so vulnerable. And I think that we unlocked something in each other that I'd never felt before. But it really exists really within the work. It doesn't exist in a personal way.

50:09It exists on the screen. Well, that was what I found so interesting. I read that we should just say that these guys, it's like the ultimate bromance for a lot of the show. And yet I read that you guys actively avoided each other when the cameras weren't rolling. So what's the rationale there? Like what was the thought process to do that? I would think you'd want to be hanging out. I saw a clip of a talk show when I was young. And it was like Letterman and a guest. and I remember seeing this show and being like Letterman and that guest like love each other they're hilarious, the timing, the jokes and then like lights went down they went to commercial but the camera in this clip was like on them and I saw him just turn away and not even speak to this guy at all and the guy turned away too and they just sat there in silence for like three minutes and then they turned the lights back on and they went back and I was like is it that he's just a jerk and I was like no I think that's a technique.

51:12And it's something that, like, I've talked to other people about. And it's like when you're really jamming, when you've really got something special, I don't want to mess it up by, like, being out at lunch and saying something that starts to feel awkward. You know, when I tell Jason I actually love him. No, but I mean, like, I just don't want to mess it up. And there's something about when you play back. The other thing is it's so funny that they get us together for these shows and all these things. It's like if you play basketball together, it's like you could hang out or you could just go play basketball.

51:44Like I'd rather just like play the game that we're built to play. And like he's a thoroughbred when he acts and I feel like I am too. Yeah, yeah. And I want to just do that. Makes sense. Yeah, okay. Well, so again, Floyd and Clark, these characters, there is clearly – and it's played for laughs but also thought-provokingly that they have this friendship but also sort of the homoerotic subtext of like what's going on here. They work out together in funny, visually funny ways. Floyd literally wants to watch Clark with his wife. By the way, Linda Cardellini, I had forgotten, was in Brokeback, like the scene before you come in.

52:23That is correct. Did you guys meet there? No, we didn't. She brought up, I don't even remember it. She was like, we were already in a movie together. I was like, no way, what movie? She's like, Brokeback. I was like, no way. Well, so Floyd wants to watch Clark with his wife. Floyd reciprocates a French kiss from a man on a dating – who he met through a dating app because he doesn't want to hurt the man's feelings. All of this, while funny or whatever, it is – and people have written about a lot of think pieces about this show that it's looking at masculinity in 2026 and presenting some interesting questions.

53:00And I wonder, as we said, this is something that you seem to have been thinking about too and focusing some work on. I found a quote. This is from 2017 before DTF St. Louis was a glimmer in anyone's mind where you say, quote, one of the things I've been interested in my whole career is exploring masculinity and what it means to be a man, close quote. with Stranger Things, you talk about deciding not to get in shape to play, you know, shirtless scenes or whatever, and basically eating donuts and things that you imagine a cop might be doing in the Midwest at that time, all this stuff. So I guess I just wonder, is there something specific that you want to communicate about masculinity through DTF St.

53:41Louis? And I'll just quickly, sorry, add, not that there's anything wrong with having a big belly, but the big belly in the show is in fact a 30-pound latex belly? Correct. Did they watch? Was anyone pushing you to actually put on 30 more pounds? There was a discussion about it early on. There was a discussion, and I kind of was like, I can't do it anymore, guys. And I got this amazing makeup team. It's going to look amazing, guys. It was great. And it makes it that much more funnier to watch you on the fumble horse or doing the interpretive dance. But anyway, sorry. Anything that you are hoping people are thinking about that this maybe kind of prods people to think about as far as masculinity?

54:21I mean it just sort of occurred to me when – Jason and I have a scene in the thing where we go wine tasting together. Yes, yes. And he takes me wine tasting and we – we had a lot of fun that day about just silliness of like Jason had his hands full and I feed him the wine. But it was just ways that we could do it where it still felt reasonable, not like – But at one point, they're sitting and discussing. He's discussing his son's tuition for this new school that he doesn't have, and he's sort of asking for money. And his friend says, you know, yeah, I'll give you. And he says, no, I never thought being a man that it would be a man asking another man for money.

55:00I thought I would be like jumping out of an airplane saying, you know, and people looking at me saying, you're a good leader, man. Like crazy. At a time of war, I think is the line. Conrad's such a genius. But I said to him, after we shot the first take of my coverage of that scene, I remember having this moment. I was kind of misty-eyed and everything. We yelled cut, and I just turned to Jason and I said, can you imagine just being able to do this with another man in daily life? And he kind of laughed, and I was like, I just don't know that I, you know, even me, and I'm an artsy guy. Like, you know, I have all the opportunity in the world, but it's, there's something intrinsically genetically in my DNA that just, like, I guess women, I don't know, it's a secret world of women that women do it all the time is they just like share their feelings with each other and just like talk about things that are sad or confusing or whatever.

55:53And I was like, let's go do something, man. Let's go, like, whatever. And I just was really, like, opened up by the whole experience of doing that and going, I wish there was sort of a third option. And I think that, you know, one of the most interesting things about the masculinity question has gone into the nuclear family question, which is that I think what happens in this country is there's sort of a binary choice, which is you're either alone or you get together and you start a family, and that family becomes your kingdom and your property and what you protect and defend and love more than anything else in the world.

56:32I'm like, fuck everybody else. And I was like, it's a weird thing for a man to not have that community experience outside of that. And I just wonder if there aren't other options for, like, male love that we could find some other options for that as opposed to, like, just acquiring this family or being whatever. And I don't know. It's an ongoing question. But I do think the question goes into the structures of the way we've set up nuclear families and the way men are viewed and good men, bad men, whatever, that there's a certain rigidity to their role that I think is difficult. I wonder for you, this is obviously, as we were saying, kind of the first big project post-Stranger Things that you have your hands all over.

57:28What's this kind of moment like for you in the sense of coming off of that one huge chapter of your life, starting on another, having it be embraced? I mean, this is an unusual show. It takes people maybe sometimes an episode or two to decide what they're dealing with. You did say watch it, and I was like, good. But also watch episode two, even if you're a little confused. Stick with it. Because I think it does take a tonal – I think people are – yeah, I think that first episode is a lot sometimes. Totally. But then once you get into it, it really does get rolling. And again, clearly just as one marker of that, aside from really good reviews and audience reaction.

58:06But, I mean, I believe you're now nominated for two Emmys. You've been nominated before for Stranger Things, but to be nominated for producing this show, to be nominated for acting in it, you know, are you able to enjoy this? I got the sense that when Stranger Things dropped, I guess, so again, just a half a year ago or whatever, maybe there were some mixed feelings or something going on personally or whatever. Are you able to now enjoy this maybe more than you were able to enjoy that? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the fact that there was 13 nominations across the board for this show means that, you know, and all the acting in it got nominated.

58:45It's just like an embrace of us in a way that I really appreciate and that I really, it's very moving to me. So, you know, I am taking the time to, like, bask and appreciate it and also taking the opportunity to be like, and here's some more stuff I got, guys. Well, that's the last thing I was going to ask you is, like, you know, obviously people have come to love you through Stranger Things and these other things. Certainly now a certain type of person who's watched DTF St. Louis, it's not everybody, but, you know, it's probably not this. I wonder how much overlap there is between people who loved Stranger Things and who loved DTF.

59:26Maybe that's the point. If it's a whole different group, great. But what is next? I heard about something with Courtney Cox and maybe some other things. But just tell us what we can look forward to. I do think that there are actors out there who have creative EKGs in a sense. They're always the ones that I like. And I think that when you watch a guy like – I mean I'm sort of a huge – I love Nick Cage. You see when he hits into his creative stride, right? He goes through bad periods, too, where he's doing stuff where you're just like, oh, what are you doing, man? I was like, I get it, man. We got to pay the bills.

1:00:03But then when you hit that stride where it's just all over the place and you just don't know exactly what you're going to get, but you know what you're going to get. And what you're going to get is a swing and a thoughtfulness and an intentionality behind it. And I hope that's what people start to feel with me is that, you know, whether Stranger Things or DTF or whatever, that there is an intentionality behind trying to look at culture and human beings with a, you know, a deeply empathetic eye toward what's beautiful about us, what's funny, what's tragic and what's beautiful about us. But also things that see me in a lot of wigs and a lot of fake noses, too, and stuff where you get to play around.

1:00:42So I got a movie that's going to TIFF, which is me and Patricia Arquette. It's directed by Courtney Cox, which is like an evil genius. It's based on that documentary about the couple that strapped a bomb to a guy's chest, and a pizza delivery guy made him rob a bank. Insane people, but a love story. You're playing the pizza guy? I play the guy. No, no. Tom McCarthy plays the pizza guy. Oh, okay. I play the guy who organized, the evil genius, if you will. The guy that orchestrates or thinks he's orchestrating this grand, amazing plan. I don't know if it reads that way, but it's definitely intricate.

1:01:18And then there's a couple other projects sort of in the works now. Do you want to be producing some more? Well, and then I've started to, yeah. We sold a show to Netflix, which is Me and Millie again. Oh, wow. Yeah. with, it's a spy thriller. Film or series? It'll be a series for Netflix. And it's written by Jack Thorne, who wrote Adolescence and who wrote, you know, all of her Enola movies. And it's really quite brilliant. It's an idea that came from a book that Jack and A24 and I sort of all hashed out. And I'm really excited about that. And there's, you know, there's another thing with Steve that we're working on.

1:02:00Steve Conrad, yeah. Yeah, Steve Conrad that we're working on And it's, you know, I'm not sure. I think there might be more DTF, but there also might be. There's a new thing, you know. Oh, there could be more DTF. There could be more DTF. Who knows? I mean, it was successful. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what HBO feels about that. Like more like an anthology. Like you're talking about White Lotus. Right. Anthology type. More of an anthology. Yeah. But there's also some chatter. Nothing's been decided. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's cool. But there's also, I do know that with Steve, like he, you know, he has more in him.

1:02:31I joke around that like, you know, you could do all these things or we could also, you know, make the Sopranos. Yeah. Like, I mean, I think that the collaboration that I felt with Steve, like I really do feel like he's a genius. And again, it's that thing where I feel like he brings out the best in me. And I feel like I bring out a lot of good in him as well. I think we work well together. and I think with a wider, with a bigger scope and a bigger palette, we have an idea that's really exciting. So hopefully, yeah, a lot more. A lot of exciting. I do, if you wouldn't mind, I have to follow up on one thing.

1:03:10Oh, please. Just because, again, to kind of connect the project that people fell in love with you for the most probably of Stranger Things to the future. I mean, that's pretty, I mean, how old was Millie when you guys first started Stranger Things? Yeah, she was 10 or 11. Maybe she was 11. And now what is she like? She's 21 now, 22. So just because the collaboration sounds like goes on with this next project, like what's that like? How many people have worked with somebody when they were preteen and then as a full-fledged adult? I mean she's a partner. Like she's someone I love and who loves me.

1:03:50And I think that we've gone through a lot and we have a deeper understanding of each other and we have both desire to explore similar things. And I think she's at a time in her life when she's – we talked about when I was 35 how I gave up the idea of being on a talk show. She, I think, is in a different point in her life where she's given up. I mean, she's just a huge star. So, like, she doesn't give it up. But I think she's searching for what she wants to say as an artist, you know, as opposed to with all the brands and all the things. It's like, what is she? And I was psyched that she came to me and we talked about it and I came to her and we talked about it.

1:04:39And we came up with this thing that is really, you know, it's just really exciting. Yeah, she's someone who I really care about. And it's been such an interesting journey because I've known her for so long. I've been her fake dad for years and years. And, like, it just – I think there's something that we have to serve audiences with still. And especially that fan base of Hopper and Eleven, which was such a dynamic thing. where it's like what can we do now to further that or to at least take this artistic partnership and like move it forward. I mean I love the artistic partnerships of like this is going to sound insane that I say this but like John Reilly and Will Ferrell.

1:05:22Yeah. Like you get Step Brothers, you get like Holmes and Watson, you get Talladega Nights, you get like whatever. So it's like are we, what can we do with Hopper and Eleven or Millie and David in terms of that partnership going forward? That's exciting to me. Well, I guess W.C. Fields was wrong. Don't work with kids and don't work with animals. I still hate working with dogs. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, David. Appreciate it. Thank you, man. It was a real pleasure. Thank you.

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