David Harbour, known by many from the Netflix series “Stranger Things,” revealed in an interview that he was cut from a masterpiece by Steven Spielberg and how a meeting with the director went afterward.
In an interview with Yahoo on December 6, 2022, the actor shared how his scene from a famous sci-fi film by Spielberg was cut and how he later met the director again – who, however, could not remember Harbour.
Here you can see a trailer for Stranger Things:
David Harbour acted in War of the Worlds but is not seen in the film
David Harbour had a small role in the sci-fi film War of the Worlds from 2005. In the credits, he is listed as “Dock Worker.”
The actor recounted how his small scene in the film looked:
I had a scene with me and Tom Cruise in a bar. I don’t know if you remember the film, but [Cruise’s dock worker Ray Ferrier] works nights and arrives late to pick up his child after his shift at the dock.
And the mother gets really angry at him because he is a failure, so to speak. Well, in the original script, there was a scene where the reason for his tardiness was that he went out for drinks with his buddy in the bar after his shift at 8 in the morning. And his buddy in the bar was me.
Harbour via yahoo.com
It was just a small, insignificant scene, as Harbour further clarified. He already felt that it might fall victim to the cutting process.
However, star director Spielberg had been on set and the actor was so excited to finally meet him after having gotten the role from him.
But there is no trace of “Hopper” in the film because: His scene was cut from the final version, which Harbour found to be “devastating and terrible.”
This year, the Stranger Things prequel with young stars playing the roles of Hopper and Joyce will start. You can read more about it here with our colleagues from Moviepilot.
But evidently, the director not only cut the actor from his film but also completely banished him from his memory.
Years later, Spielberg and Harbour met again, this time for a table read for another project.
There, the director approached the actor and said excitedly: “Oh, David, I just want to say that I really love you in Revolutionary Road (Road to Redemption). I think you’re just great. We are so happy. I would really like to work with you one day.”
The actor didn’t hold it against him. Laughing, Harbour recounted in the interview: […] “I didn’t mention that we had already worked together and that he cut me from his film.”
At another time, the actor spoke about how WoW took over his life for a while – until Sims opened his eyes:
WoW ruined the life of “Hopper” from Stranger Things for a year – but Sims brought enlightenment
