- I was diagnosed as bipolar.
- I think that storytelling, at its essence, allows us to feel like we all suffer the same insanity or a similar insanity of existence: that nobody escapes scot-free. We're all going to wind up - at the best-case scenario - 80, 85, 90, broken, in pain, and feeling like it was all a dream and not really understanding the point of any of it.
- When I got to be, like, in high school and stuff, I sort of was drawn to that feeling of feeling uncomfortable in my skin and being confused by human beings, like, just constantly confused.
- 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.
- There are certain societal laws that are just accepted, things that are arbitrary. I think the fun thing about psychotics is that they question that. It can be very freeing... like, my ego or my individuality trumps society's law.
- The mythos of superheroes is our mythos today. They are American myths. 'Captain America,' 'Iron Man,' 'Hulk' - these are the biggest movies in the world. But sometimes, superhero movies can be a little bit thin.
- I'm around 6'4" and 240 pounds. So I rarely feel that intimidated by other men. But I've got to give it up to Terry Bradshaw. That guy is a complete bulldog.
- I'm a bit of a strange human being - I love to work. I love art. I love self-expression.
- I'm normally a pretty loquacious, kind of fun person.
- The more I work in the film business, the more I see that those guys, the directors, have the most fun on set.
- I'm very interested in the drama of the leading man being someone who is incapable, becoming capable.
- The one thing I can say about the 'Stranger Things' cast that I don't often feel when I do television and movies is that every single actor on that show that I've interacted with is a good-hearted person.
- I want to bring love handles and eating sandwiches back.
- I'm just trying to give the best human expression that I can to any particular genre, which could be comedy, could be drama, could be horror, could be thriller.
- I love all kinds of stuff. I really am so eclectic in my taste. I love film noir, I love thrillers, and I love big blockbuster popcorn cinema stuff, but I like it when it's twinged with a bit more social consciousness.
- Never take advice, including this.
- One of the most beautiful things about Shakespeare's Hamlet is when he stops in the middle of the play to ask, 'To be or not to be?' Then, right at the end, he decides to 'let be.' The first season of 'Stranger Things' was Hopper asking whether 'to be or not to be' and the second is to 'let be.'
- I think I'm very hard on myself. I think I've always been very hard on myself since I was a kid.
- All of Aaron Sorkin's characters are so smart.
- In this business, certainly it's a lot crazier for women than it is for men, but there's such a thing where there's a lot of judgment on the way you look and on your body.
- One of the things about having played a lot of villains is... I don't have the same experience of someone who maybe has been a leading man since they were 22 and therefore looks at certain things in a character to romanticize themselves. I actually very much embrace the bad stuff.
- I'm always fascinated emotionally in the moment that someone pulls a gun, even a cop. That action - I don't know that I, personally, as a human being, could do it.
- I love taking people on that journey, which I feel like can open them up to seeing human beings a little more complexly. People that you originally don't like, maybe they have reasons for the way they are, and maybe we can start to understand each other a little better as opposed to being quick to judge and dismiss people.
- I am a dude who is meant to be on a couch in New York City thumbing through magazines.
- I got the 'Stranger Things' script, like, a week before NBC canceled 'State of Affairs.' I really had this moment where I'm like, 'I'm done.' My neuroses is very sophisticated: I was like, 'I am done. Hollywood is done with David Harbour. They are finished.'
- At the end of the day, my biggest fear in life is that I'm gonna wind up being an actor who plays the dad on a TV show like 'Full House' or 'Small Wonder' or something - I'm, like, the desexualized dad in the show 'Alf.'
- I try to keep it separate as I can, but also, I'm not going to live my life in complete privacy. If I'm feeling something, I'm going to live my life. I will not hide things.
- Life really is too short.
- The perils of success at a young age is being afraid to make a mistake.
- I'm terrified of the ocean. I think it's beautiful and magical, but I never go in. That deep, dark water, with no understanding of what goes on behind it - I think that's a metaphor for a lot of things.
- It was always my dream to be a New York theater actor. I never thought I was pretty enough to be on camera.
- Untangling Christmas lights is the true tragedy of 'Stranger Things.'
- The fact is, for years, I had been trapped in a certain narcissism and a desire to have a certain body and look sexy.
- The interesting thing about my career is for years I was trying to do that thing of getting in shape and looking cool - I would look at myself in camera angles and think how my chin looked the best and all this stuff. And I really couldn't get that much work.
- I'll put 'Stranger Things' up there with the best of it. I think it's such a profound show - it's very subtle in the way that it tells its story, but it's very effective. Every time I watch it, I feel something, which is very rare for me.
- With a lot of projects, you never know if it's going to be executed properly. And also, you never know if people are going to respond to it.
- When I was in 8th grade, I saw Branagh's 'Henry V' in the Paris Theater, and it changed my life.
- At the end of the day, what I try to bring to villainous characters is a sense of humanity.
- A lot of the characters I gravitate towards feel like outsiders.
- I'm a man. I'm not gonna wear dad jeans or whatever you call them.
- It's, like, weird to watch a human being develop.
- I really like big swashbuckling superhero films, but I feel like that Marvel universe is not adult enough.
- Always, with speeches, I feel like it's an opportunity to say something.
- I don't associate success with happiness, and I don't take it to heart, like, 'Oh, I'm so special.'
- 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.'
- You gotta do things your own way. You have to find your own path. You have to take what appeals to you and leave all the rest.
- One of the things I've been interested in my whole career is exploring masculinity and what it means to be a man. The sensitivity of a man, but also the violence and power that goes along with it.
- Some people get very successful for something they're very cynical about - like Alec Guinness in 'Star Wars.' He thought it was ridiculous. Whereas for me, I'm so proud of 'Stranger Things.' I'm so proud of everyone's work in it. And it's become so successful. So for those two to meet is incredible.
- I did this movie, 'A Walk Among the Tombstones' - I truly play a horrible, horrible individual in that - and I would occasionally go to the theater and watch what people's responses were, and they would laugh. He makes jokes, and people would respond to him in a human way. Then I've really done my job if I've humanized a really horrible person.
- The Duffer Brothers are so attentive to story and detail while being wildly respectful of me and what I bring to the process.
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