In director Tommy Wirkola's (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters) R-rated holiday comedy, Violent Night, David Harbour stars as Santa Claus who comes equipped with a Christmas bag of tricks. Produced by John Wick’s David Leitch, Violent Night takes place on Christmas Eve, when a group of mercenaries, led by the aptly-named Scrooge (John Leguizamo), take a wealthy compound hostage. Unfortunately for them, these mercenaries just made Santa’s naughty list. This brutal holiday flick also features National Lampoon’s Beverly D’Angelo, Cam Gigandet, and Edi Patterson.

Ahead of the movie’s theatrical release on December 2, Collider’s Steve Weintraub was able to sit down with Harbour to discuss the actor’s upcoming busy schedule. During the interview, Harbour shares his initial reaction to Wirkola’s offer, and how he teared up reading the script for Violent Night. He also talks about his Law & Order days, saying goodbye to Jim Hopper in Stranger Things, and teases “new elements” from Marvel’s Thunderbolts. You can watch the fun interview in the video above, or read the full transcript below.

COLLIDER: You know I've been a fan of your work for a while, but there's a lot of people that actually haven't seen anything you've done. So if someone has never seen anything that you've been in, what is the first thing you want them watching and why?

DAVID HARBOUR: Oh God, that's a great question. Such a revealing question. I mean, I do think that [the] first season of Stranger Things is probably the thing where you'll get to know me the best and kind of what I do. I think it's probably the most impressive sort of subtle thing I've done. The arc of that character, especially in that first season, it's the work that I think I'm proudest of at this point.

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Image via Universal

You've done a lot of different things. Which shot or sequence ended up being the toughest thing that you've done in your career in a movie?

HARBOUR: Toughest how?

Maybe either because of the performance or because of the camera move. The technical aspects of the shot.

HARBOUR: There was a lot of really tough big stuff on Black Widow that we shot, because a lot of that prison stuff was kind of insane. A lot of movement, like 500 backgrounds, a lot of difficult angles and camera moves, and stuff like that.

Another one that really does jump out though is, same thing, at the end of that first season of Stranger Things, when we were in the library at the end of the show where we pull Will (Noah Schnapp) out of the vines and we do the CPR on him. That was particularly difficult, because of all the technical elements of doing CPR on that kid, the spores in the air, the suits we were wearing, reflections, things like that. And it was a night shoot. It was a really tough day, as well. So I would say of the things, a lot of the prison stuff in Black Widow was really hard, and then that last day of Stranger Things Season 1 was really hard as well.

They say that every New York City actor will eventually be on Law & Order. You have done, I believe, four episodes of Law & Order, each, of course, a different one. Which was your favorite character to play?

HARBOUR: I think I've done even more than that. I think I've done six.

Well, my prep work was terrible.

HARBOUR: No, I want to lay it down. I want to lay it down for you. My first one was a one-day role on Law & Order. I played a waiter at a restaurant where the cops come and interview you about the suspect. So I had three lines, Mike the Waiter, and it was when Jerry Orbach was still doing the show, and I remember he had a scene with me and it was my first big thing. I had done soap operas before, but I was a waiter on the show and it was a big deal. I remember showing up and seeing all this background. They had 50 people in the bar, and they were smoking up the bar, and I just couldn't believe that they were going to put the camera on me with all these people and I just could not believe it. I was so excited and nervous.

And I remember they were trying to get my coverage before lunch and I was so nervous. They put the camera set up and Jerry Orbach was right off camera, and he just leaned in. He touched my hand, he said, "You got this." And it was so wonderful for an old New York guy to do that to me. A guy who had been there, and it just felt so gratifying, that whole thing. But I did two regular Law & Orders, two Criminal Intents, and two SUVs, Special Victims, because every two years in New York you can go back and play another villain. That was part of the rule in New York. But I remember there was... I guess the one I liked the most was, I think it was written by [René Balcer], it was Criminal Intent and it was about a guy who loses it and has a psychotic episode and believes that he's the savior of the world or something.

And it was based on people receiving pipe bombs, at banks and stuff like that. So he builds a pipe bomb, sends it to a bank, but he also kills his daughter's dance teacher, kills his uncle, kills all these people, and then winds up taking his daughter out to the woods and saying that she is the Second Coming, and they're going to be together and save the world. It's a really creepy dude.

And I loved it. It was me and Vincent [D’Onofrio], at the end, who had something called the “aria” on that show, which was like he and the murderer get together for about 10 pages and he just figures out a way to manipulate them into confessing. And that was just really fun. It was a really creepy guy. And Vincent and I had a big old 10-page aria, and I had known Vincent before that and we had just a great time doing that aria. So that was probably my favorite one.

David Harbour as Santa Claus in Violent Night
Image via Universal

Jumping into why I get to talk to you today. I'm going to start with congratulations. Talk a little bit about this project and just getting involved. Was this something that when they approached you about this were you like, "Wait, me? Santa Claus? And he's really Santa Claus and I'm going to be kicking ass? Wait, what?"

HARBOUR: Yeah, basically you're doing the exact impression of me. It was a little darker than that though. It was more like, "What? I don't get it. Pass." I think was the first response. And they were like, "No, no, wait a minute, wait a minute." I was like, "No, no. What are you talking about? A violent Santa Claus movie? He's kicking ass. It doesn't make any sense to me." They said talk to the director and talk to David Leitch, the producer. And I had known David a little bit. And they called me up, and I haven't even read the script they just wanted to talk to me before they sent me the script. And Tommy Wirkola is this weird Norwegian... I keep calling him weird, I'm worried he's going to see one of these interviews... I just mean he's kind of childlike and sweet and he loves Christmas. He loves reindeer because they eat them up in Norway. They do all kinds of stuff with reindeer.

He loves the whole Christmas thing, and Leitch is a big action guy, and I've always admired those…like Atomic Blonde, those ones where the actor gets to do most of the choreography, and I always wanted to do one of those. So they pitched me this thing that they said was wild, and they said it was a big swing, but if we could pull it off it would be really cool. And they sent me the script and it did feel like a big swing. It felt like you have an action movie, but in the middle of it you obviously have a comedy, but in the real true center of it, you have a Christmas movie, like the best Hallmark Christmas movie or, in my mind, the top-shelf, which is Miracle on 34th Street, which is just like, "Is he real? Is Santa real?" A little girl going through some problems, who needs to believe in something in her life, and she finds Santa Claus, and he's real. And Christmas is about giving and love and all these things.

I thought that was really special, really unique. And when I read it in the script, it made me tear up at the end and I thought, "Wow, that's special." Because, a lot of scripts, it's hard enough to get through them. This one I got through, and at the end in those scenes with him and her where he's saying, "I better get going now," it made me tear up and I was like, "Oh, this could be really special if we get it right." But I still, at that time, thought it was a big swing, and it was going to be real hard. We had to go to work real hard on it, and we did. But that was what made me want to do it, that it was so unique, and even though it was a big action movie, I got emotional at the end.

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Image via Universal Pictures

Action scenes look amazing when you're watching them at home in the comfort of your couch or in a movie theater, but filming them is a holy-shit pain in the ass. At what point in the shoot were you like, "Why did I sign on for this movie?"

HARBOUR: Before the shoot even began I was that way. I went up to Winnipeg with the stunt guys for a month before even pre-production. We had a month of training in Winnipeg, and then we went home for Christmas, and then we came back in January, [and] had another month of prep to train. But for that month in December, I was already eating because I wanted him to be big, so I was eating a lot and I showed up at these training rehearsals with these guys. We were doing wrestling, mainly jui-jitsu and wrestling, and I don't know if you've ever wrestled, I never had.

You do this thing called pummeling in wrestling. Basically just grabbing a guy, and he grabs you, and you just do this for hours. And it is the most tiring and exhausting thing I have ever.... I've never been that tired in my life. We trained for about three or four hours a day, and then I would just go pass out and sleep like 16 hours and wake up in the morning and do it again. It was so exhausting. And these guys are so skilled, and they also make you look so good because they're doing the reactions. So you're just trying to keep up with their choreography. But they also were so sweet, they had endless energy and I was just exhausted.

But being able, at this age, to be paid to learn new disciplines and learn new things in life is such a gift. And when you're working with skilled professionals like that, it's something that I wouldn't want to miss. So I kept showing up and I kept showing up on time. It was exhausting, but it was also... It's just real gratifying to be able to learn something like that at this stage of life. So it was also very rewarding.

Did you get to keep Skull Crusher?

HARBOUR: No, I don't have Skull Crusher, but I have his stand-in, who's the sledgehammer from the shed. I have one of those.

Listen, there's been a lot of great Christmas movies and this one nods Home Alone, it nods Die Hard. Can you sort talk about that aspect, that it's having fun?

HARBOUR: Yeah, absolutely. Throughout the movie, there's so many homages to all these Christmas movies and that was what really stuck out for me. Not even so much the Home Alone. We actually talk about Home Alone in the movie, the little girl had just watched Home Alone, and then later on in the movie there's a sequence that's very Home Alone with the bad guys, which is great. It's a great sequence. It’s hilarious.

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Image via Universal

That sequence is A+.

HARBOUR: Yeah, people love that sequence. It's a terrific sequence. And when I read the movie, it was really Die Hard that stuck out to me. There's even sequences where he doesn't necessarily say the exact lines, but there's a lot of... [John] McClane has a lot of one-liners in that movie. He's like, "Come to New York, it'll be great, they said." Or, "Ho ho ho, I have a machine gun," which he writes. But there's a lot of that in the movie as well. It's kind of got a throwback feel to even some of the old [Arnold] Schwarzenegger movies like Commando. There was a lot of one-liners, which we, in the edit, have massaged because we felt like we didn't quite need them. But the script itself has a real ‘80s feel to it in its bones. Santa was running around saying, "These guys are feliz navi-dead," or, "I'm going to eat these guys like a plateful of cookies."

They're like one-liners that you'd find in an old Schwarzenegger movie. There's something about that that I like, because they've experimented with it in Stranger Things certainly, as well, where there's a lot of these old tropes where the genre itself, the popular movie genre, had a real peak in the ‘80s with these particular movies. I think there's some, going back to that, looking back at how great that was, that we as audiences want, we want that [Steven] Spielberg flavor again, or we want that Die Hard flavor again. And so, I thought it was really fun in the script that they paid a lot of homage to the movies, and those movies are just spectacular movies. So yeah, we have a lot of Die Hard homage. We have a lot of Home Alone homage. But we have fun with it.

Are you looking forward or, a little bit, dreading that your next year might already be mapped out with Marvel and then Stranger Things, and that that's all you're filming?

HARBOUR: Yeah, next year is going to be a very tough year for me schedule-wise. We've already gotten into a lot of that. I mean, the thing that is gratifying is that it is... They are two things that I love. I love both characters very much. It will be my goodbye to Jim Hopper though, too, which is a big deal. Fortunately, I feel like I have a long time to say goodbye because I think we're going to take a long time shooting these episodes. I know those Duffer Brothers are very specific, and I know they want to get that last season. I mean if you look at Season 4, I have a feeling that Season 5 may not be as long, but it certainly will be packed to the brim with good stuff that you love. I mean, they really are getting better at giving you that home run that the audiences love. And I think that Season 5 will do that so much.

And then to get to play Hopper one last time will be really exciting, and I'm going to pour my soul into it as hard as I can. So in that way, scheduling-wise it's going to be crazy. You're right, I'm just going to be shooting that. But that role has been the role of a lifetime in many ways. I hope I'll play things further on that would be even more known in the way. I don't want this to be the thing that people... Whatever that means.

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Is it possible that you are going to have to do Thunderbolts for two weeks, go to Stranger Things for a week, go back to Thunderbolts? Or is it going to be where you're just shooting Marvel and then going to Stranger Things?

HARBOUR: Have you been talking to my lawyers? Have you been talking to the First AD? Because they're pissed.

No, because I know that Thunderbolts starts filming early next year, or sometime next year, and I know that the Duffers have been writing since August because they told me. So I know the scripts are... I know how filmmaking works and I know that both...

HARBOUR: I need you in the room on the deal. I need you saying, "Look, I know how this works guys. This has already been read." No, you're right. It really is. It's going to have to be a back-and-forth with me. They're going to have to sort of share me. And so it is kind of like, I don't know exactly how they're working it, but it's a week on, week off, two weeks on, two weeks off, something like that where I would go back and forth. They both are being shot in Atlanta.

Oh, that's actually amazing. You got so lucky.

HARBOUR: That may have also been structured in a certain way, but yes, it is helpful. So I can just literally shoot a scene in Stranger Things and get in my car and run over to the Marvel scene to shoot a scene there maybe. Do you know what I do have real problems with, Steve? I have facial hair conundrums. I really have to figure that out. Yeah, it's a real thing.

What's really funny is people don't think about that. Also, you might want to be bigger for Thunderbolts, but you want to be thinner for Stranger Things. How do you pull that off?

HARBOUR: All these things... Prosthetics have come a long way in so many different ways, so that's wonderful. And then it is another aspect of creative limitations that you use to your advantages. There's great scenes in Rocky where there's no close-up at the end of the movie. It's because they didn't have enough film stock to shoot it. So it becomes an iconic thing. And so hopefully the idea will be because of these limitations, you have to shoot these two characters back-to-back. You use that as inspiration. It's like, what can I do that'll be really cool for Hopper, and really cool for Alexei, that's going to be able to do these things in tandem, and I'm going to try to get real creative, we're all going to try to get real creative about it and come up with something real cool. But it definitely is a factor. You don't have just blank slate creativity. You have to think strategically.

David Harbour as Jim Hopper with a scratch in Stranger Things
Image via Netflix

Have you actually read the Thunderbolts script or been told what this is all going to be?

HARBOUR: Yes. I've been told what it's all going to be. I have yet to read a script.

Sure.

HARBOUR: But I have been told the arc.

Are you super happy, happy, or “Oh my God, this is going to be awesome?”

HARBOUR: It’s going to be really good. It's going to be really... And it's not what you'd expect. It incorporates a couple new elements, new things that we have yet to see in the universe. It's really cool. We introduce a thing that's super cool. It's vital.

I'm psyched that Julia Louis-Dreyfus' character is going to be, in a bigger way, explored. Of course, one of the things you'll probably know is that the me and Florence [Pugh] dynamic will be in there and explored in a way that's really cool. But all these guys, Sebastian's [Stan] character, Wyatt's [Russell] character, I just love this mercenary element in the MCU. MCU has always been sort of elevated in a certain way. Captain America, even Ironman, although he has egos, are always in it for the right reasons, or ultimately does the right thing. And I like these guys who are a bunch of losers, or a bunch of guys who can't quite get it right. And so far what they've pitched me just feels really cool. It just feels really cool. I mean, I wish I could talk more about it, but you know how it is.

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Image via Disney

In a year and a half, we'll talk at some junket in 2024.

HARBOUR: Exactly. I'll see you then.

Exactly. Listen, I could keep talking to you, but I got to wrap. I'm just going to say congrats.

HARBOUR: I'm surprised, that's it? Steve, from now on I trust you. I got scared.

What's funny is I have all these questions here, and none of them got asked because I told you...

HARBOUR: Oh, damn it.

At the beginning you were like, "20 minutes?" I'm like, I needed 30, and I had more. Hey, well listen, man, congrats on everything, and really have a great year of filming next year. And then I didn't even ask you about Gran Turismo.

HARBOUR: I just quickly will say it's super fun and that Neill Blomkamp is so cool, and such a good director, that it's really been a joy to work on this movie, and this movie's going to be... Talk about not what you expect, with him at the helm there's a visceral-ness to this movie, to this video game world that is so cool. I can't wait for you to see this movie.

Yeah, it's also some cool wish fulfillment, and it's a true story.

HARBOUR: Yeah. Sim racing, man, who knew? Those guys are incredible.

Violent Night hits theaters December 2.