David Harbour on Changing the Dialogue About Mental Illness With ‘Mad House’ and Hopper’s Fate in ‘Stranger Things’

variety.com:

Jenelle Riley Deputy Awards, Features EditorAfter losing more than 75 pounds for Season 4 of “Stranger Things,” in which his character Jim Hopper was wasting away in a Russian gulag, David Harbour had one thing on his mind. “As soon as we finished my last shirtless scene, I sent my assistant to this great pasta place for lasagna,” Harbour recalls. “It only came in trays, so I gave her a little section and then I just took the whole tray and dove in like a maniac.”  After battling starvation, Soviet guards and a Demogorgon in the hit Netflix series, Harbour is currently facing some truly scary demons — family.

The actor is appearing in Theresa Rebeck’s latest play, “Mad House,” at the Ambassadors Theatre in London, running through Sept.

4. Eight shows a week, Harbour storms and thunders as Michael, a schizophrenic man who is released from a mental institution and thrown into equally harrowing conditions as he moves home to care for his dying father Daniel (Bill Pullman).

The already tense situation isn’t helped when his selfish siblings Nedward (Stephen Wight) and Pam (Sinéad Matthews) appear, aggravating the fractures in his already fragile state.