What Will David Harbour Do About Lily Allen's Album?

0:00Coming up on The Daily, David Harbour, the Stranger Things star whose personal life is stranger than fiction. How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow. Imagine if you can, turning on the radio and hearing the lurid lyrics of your estranged pop star wife's latest hit and spitting out your tea when you realise they're likely to be about you.

0:50Hollywood star David Harbour has had to endure weeks of negative headlines following the release of the new album from his former partner, Lily Allen. And it just so turns out, it's the very definition of a revenge record. You might want to lie low for a bit, but that's not possible, not with the imminent drop of the final season of Stranger Things, the Netflix mega hit that made Harbour a worldwide superstar. So, what impact will it have on his career, and the perception of him among millions of previously adoring fans? Well, shortly, I'll be talking to the culture commissioning editor at the iPaper, Emily Bootle, about the potential repercussions for Stranger Things and Netflix.

1:31But first, let's bring in Sky's entertainment editor, Claire Gregory. I mean, David Harbour, he is a fascinating character for a number of reasons which we'll be getting into. But where did it all start for him?

1:40David Harbour:It all kind of came relatively late for him. You know, he was born in 1975 and in his early 20s, late teens started doing a bit of acting. and it was really kind of a Broadway role that was his first kind of real break. That Broadway role was in a remake of The Rainmaker and it kind of got him some attention and from that he became a bit of a jobbing actor. He was known, but he wasn't a household name by any stretch of the imagination. But one of those faces that you go, do you know what? I have seen him somewhere. Exactly that. And, you know, he was very open, even in kind of early interviews, about some of his sort of struggles in life, which also slightly sets him apart.

2:18David Harbour:He went on a podcast, it was Mark Murren's WTF in 2018, and he was really open about his struggles in early life. He talked about being diagnosed with bipolar, he talked about addiction issues, he talked about his parents actually, when he kind of had this episode putting him into a medical facility and being medicated for years after that. So he's been open about that sort of colourful life that he's had. Let's focus though on the acting and those years as a jobbing actor. I mean, the show that I first came across him on was the Aaron Sorkin The Newsroom. We played a presenter and a reporter, a bit gruff, but out there.

2:52I wonder why that appeared to me. But he did lots of stuff.

2:55David Harbour:Well, yeah, I mean, it's funny, isn't it? Because you and I obviously love The Newsroom because we're journalists and you love watching stuff set in newsrooms and things like that. And a lot of people would know him for that. It was, as you say, an Aaron Sorkin series. It was quite well known, especially in the US. And then equally, you know, you've got some incredible films that he was in. If I say James Bond's Quantum of Solace, Brokeback Mountain, The Green Hornet, these are massive, massive films. You know, he was kind of playing a role where you go, oh, that CIA agent. Oh, yeah, I know who you mean.

3:22David Harbour:I know. Yeah, he was in Quantum of Solace. But, you know, he wouldn't be kind of gracing the front pages of the gossip magazines and things like that. But there is a role for actors like that in the Hollywood fundament. But of course, the one thing that they all want is the breakthrough. And he got it with Stranger Things. Yeah, I mean, it completely transformed his career, really. We're very used to Netflix sort of churning out hits now. But when Stranger Things first arrived, it was one of Netflix's like major, major behemoth of a hit. I think it was their third most watched original show that they'd had at that time.

3:55David Harbour:And it was sci-fi drama. It was quite, it was different to other things. It was so heavy on the nostalgia. That was the thing that I got because it's everything is viewed through this 80s prism from the soundtrack to the graphics that they use to the whole overall aesthetic. but it was about more than just dipping a toe into the 80s. Exactly. It's that strange combination of sort of nostalgia and then sci-fi. So it's got this kind of futuristic slash past combination going on. And whatever it was, you know, it's that magic sauce. If only shows knew how to bottle that. But it completely worked.

4:28David Harbour:It was a huge hit. It continues to be a huge hit for Netflix. Cost them a lot of money to make, of course. But what it did is it propelled the stars. And David Harbour, particularly, along with his sort of on-screen adoptive daughter, and played by Millie Bobby Brown. I mean, those two, I would argue, are the real breakouts. OK, so let's turn now to Emily Bootle. She's written about the David Harbour scandal in the iPaper and, like me, is a massive Stranger Things fan. Emily, for those who are not fans like us, just explain the character that David Harbour plays and the significance to the show.

5:01Lily Allen:He plays a character called Hopper, who is the sheriff of the town in Stranger Things. And at the beginning of the series, he started as this kind of slightly weather-beaten, slightly reclusive type who has developed into a really central character. He has a relationship with Winona Ryder's character. He is Eleven, Millie Bobby Brown's character. He's Eleven's adoptive father. He has had lots of very heroic scenes where he's ended up being the one to face down the monster. So he's had a real sort of heroic arc, I would say, over the course of the series. For me, it is one of those characters where the actor and the character, they're not entirely indistinguishable, but you see plenty of parallels within them.

5:48And as you say, a heroic individual, he was a fan favourite.

5:51Lily Allen:Definitely. And I think, you know, so much of the character rests on that certain rugged look that David Harbour has. And because he isn't a particularly famous actor, although he's a very successful one, but he's not known in particular for any other roles before Stranger Things. So you do very much associate him with Hopper. So how then did you feel when the Lily Allen album dropped and we got, what, a kind of a blurring effect in fiction, but an insight into the relationship? How has it affected your view of Harbour slash Hopper? I mean, are you able to separate the art from the artist? Well, I think I'm going to find it difficult to watch Stranger Things and not think about Lily Allen, let's put it that way.

6:37Lily Allen:I think what the album taps into is a kind of very modern problem in lots of modern relationships. You know, we've seen a lot of discussion in the past few years about ethical non-monogamy and what that looks like and what that means for people. And I think it's really hit close to home because Lily Allen has kind of spelled out exactly how wrong that can go. And David Harbour has just sort of been caught up in that and she paints a very convincing picture. It will be difficult for fans to separate the two. So, Min, key question, Emily, are you still going to be watching? I think I will still watch it, yeah I don't think that David Harbour has done something so bad That he should be sort of boycotted from the screen I will still be watching And I may continue to watch it or I may not But that will depend on the quality of the show Rather than Harbour per se But like I said, I will be thinking of Lily Allen as I do Let's bring Claire Gregory back in Claire, just take us back to how David Harbour and Lily Allen first got together I'm thinking it was around about 2019, which would mean he was very much at the height of his Stranger Things fame.

7:50David Harbour:The fact is, we actually don't know masses about their early relationship. They were spotted at a play together. And then not long after that, they were pictured kissing on the streets, you know, a sort of pap shot. And then just a year after that, they were married in September 2020. So it was only sort of a year that their relationship was truly public before we got the wedding post. And that was absolutely great because it was really fun. It was in Vegas. It was during COVID. So I think it was just them and the kids in the pics. And they got married by an Elvis impersonator. The photos are great.

8:19David Harbour:Lily is wearing this gorgeous kind of mini dress. And they're eating burgers. And they've got the Elvis impersonator in the picture. And in those horrible COVID times, it was like, oh, yeah, you know, a nice kind of story here. A new celebrity couple for us all to kind of obsess over. And they seemed like an interesting fit because Lily has been in the public eye in the UK since she was a teenager, certainly. And I think there's a lot of affection for her as a British star, particularly from the British public. And so it was like, oh, she's, you know, she's now married to this kind of big US star, this kind of movie guy.

8:51David Harbour:It was an interesting thing. I think there was a lot of goodwill for the relationship. I think you're right. It was nice to see something positive emerging from it. But also, you know, as so often happens when you're looking at a marriage through the spectrum of Hollywood, you do start to see a few cracks. Again, it's really important to remember that Lily Allen has kind of lived her life very publicly. And so it wasn't a big announcement came out. It was fans started spotting things. Oh, she's not wearing her wedding ring, you know, while recording her podcast. And oh, she's rumoured to be on Raya, the celebrity dating app.

9:24David Harbour:And these kind of things started happening before any kind of formal announcement that the relationship had ended. Wasn't there an incident? I mean, she was drafted in for a high profile role in the West End. And there was a note that he wrote to her, along with a bunch of flowers, suggesting that if she did well, it would upset him. And I kind of read that at the time. And I couldn't quite work out whether this was heavy with the irony or he was being entirely serious. Well, this is the thing. Now you can look back and that's exactly what fans have been doing, of course, in the last few weeks.

9:56David Harbour:You can look back and like reassess every kind of comment, even their wedding post on Instagram. he mentioned something about being like the credit card holder. And when you look back now, you can sort of put a different skew on that. I think there is an unusual kind of vibe, if you like, to the humour in the relationship. Like you say, it is odd that he seemed kind of slightly double-edged about her success, but maybe it was just a big joke at the time. It's easy to kind of look at these things now and sort of try and read extra additional meaning into them. The relationship ended before the album was released.

10:26But West End Girl, she describes it as a collection of both fact and fiction. But what did it suggest about their marriage?

10:37David Harbour:It's almost like a story from beginning to end, West End Girl. It's well worth a listen, kind of just as a concept album. It's just really interesting and good fun. It starts off with a track, West End Girl, where she talks about meeting a man, falling in love, going over to the US, buying a house and then winning a lead in a play in London. And then she tells him and he basically says, oh, you should have had to audition for that. It's seemingly in the album. That's the thing that kicks things off in her mind is like things aren't quite right. And as the album goes on, there's kind of stories of being asked about an open marriage.

11:12David Harbour:There's stories about how they had an arrangement. The lyrics are we had an arrangement, be discreet and don't be blatant. she's talking about how she had parameters for this relationship whoever this man was was supposed to not be sleeping with anyone that they already knew it had to be strangers and things like that and then you kind of also get an imagined kind of text message conversation between lily allen and someone that she thinks has been sleeping with her man in this album so there's very very intimate details of a relationship but as you quite rightly point out she's already said it's not a full biography and reading between the lines should probably be done.

11:51Whilst we fully acknowledge the blurring of the lines between fact and fiction in this, has David Harbour responded to any of it?

11:57David Harbour:Not sort of directly. He's recently done an interview with Esquire Spain and they asked if there was anything that he would change about his life now that he's 50 years old and he said, I'll read it verbatim, he said it's such a hard question, the question of regret or something, he replied, I would change either everything or nothing. slightly vague. So as you either accept your path completely and realise that even the pain and the slip ups and the mistakes are all part of the journey and that there's truth and growth, wisdom and deeper empathy and connection in all of that, it's kind of like a house of cards.

12:28David Harbour:The minute you try to change one thing, you kind of have to change it all. So it's a clever answer to a clever question, really, that sort of tells us nothing without telling us. Still, whoever Lily Allen is singing about, and as she says, you know, it's a blend of fact and fiction. You know, many people will take it to be David Harbour. Absolutely. And the individual on this album is not portrayed in a particularly nice light. He's portrayed as a cheat, a sex addict, someone who diminishes his partner in so many ways. I mean, does that necessarily have an effect on his career, do you think? Well, I think the instant impact is that it might change the way certain fans feel about him, particularly women, particularly fans of Billy Allen.

13:06David Harbour:You know, I can imagine that if you were a big fan of his, you'd feel let down. You might feel disappointed. as fans of celebrities, we sometimes kind of over-invest in their relationships and people can take it quite personally. Particularly with a character like Harper. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because people feel like, as you say, they relate to him, they know him. And it's like, well, don't let yourself down because you're letting us down as well. So I think in that sense, yes. I mean, it's a very sort of interesting timing. You know, Netflix have got the final season of Stranger Things to promote.

13:37David Harbour:David Harbour, I would imagine, was planned to be a huge part of that promotion strategy. It's an interesting time for them, no doubt. Well, even when it comes to Stranger Things, allegations have been made recently about David Harbour's conduct as regards that production. Yeah, so the Mail on Sunday said that he was facing an internal inquiry after Millie Bobby Brown put in a complaint about his behaviour towards her. Now, to be clear, no claims of sexual impropriety, but this was a kind of bullying and claims of harassment from her. against him. We don't know the full details of that inquiry.

14:13David Harbour:We don't know the outcome of that inquiry. And actually, at the Stranger Things premiere, they were pictured very happily greeting one another. Just before I was coming into the studio, I was looking at pictures from the premiere. And if there's an issue between the two of them, they are doing everything they can to make it clear that it has at least been sorted. You know, they are actors, they are pros, they know how to act in front of cameras, they know the world is watching. You know, people are definitely going to be absolutely fascinated to sort of see how they interact. But it does look, you know, they have worked together for years in this kind of father-daughter relationship.

14:45David Harbour:There are hundreds, if not thousands of pictures of them together from over the years looking kind of, you know, Pali friendly. And so I think, you know, their relationship is probably quite complex and we can't begin to know the ins and outs. But seemingly, certainly for the premiere of the series of Stranger Things, they were putting on a united front. What do you think this means for the last series of Stranger Things, but more generally for David Harbour going forward? The cynic in me sort of says, I mean, Stranger Things has never been more talked about. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there is that old adage, all publicity is good publicity.

15:22David Harbour:So maybe it's not a bad thing that suddenly, you know, will it help remind people there's a new series coming and boost those viewer numbers? A sceptic might say so, yeah. However, I suspect there have been some difficult conversations in Netflix HQ as they've been planning the press tours around this. I'd love to have been a fly on some of those walls. But yeah, I think for the series itself, the series, while David Harbour is without doubt a big part of Stranger Things, he's not the only part. It can totally weather any storm around one person because it's such a kind of ensemble thing and it's about so much more.

15:56David Harbour:Even the Duffer Brothers who make the show, they're kind of big celebrities in their own right attached to it and it's the final series and fans are so excited to kind of see how it all ends and things like that, you included. Yes, I am. I cannot wait to get back into the upside down. I think for Stranger Things, there won't be a huge impact. For David Harbour, I think it's a TBC. That interview with Spanish Esquire, that will not be the last we will hear from him. I'm sure he'll be asked about West End Girl and kind of his marriage in the months to come. And with all these things, it tends to be how people deal with these situations, crisis comms.

16:31David Harbour:You know, what else will Lily have to say? You know, again, to stress, she has said it's not, you know, a biography and perhaps it's not fair to judge him too harshly. But at the same time, yeah, I think there will be a big impact in terms of those fans, particularly the women. Claire, thanks very much indeed. And that's a lot from The Daily for this week. If you've enjoyed this episode, do feel free to have a listen back to some of the other topics we've been covering. From whether the latest climate conference in Brazil is a cop-out, see what I did there, to a special investigation into how Elon Musk is amplifying right-wing voices to UK users on X.

17:08Some pretty powerful stuff. Anyway, hope you have a great weekend. The Daily's back on Monday.

17:16How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway and in each episode of my new podcast Stuff Matters I take an object crack it open and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside This is economics told through the things we think we understand Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow