David Harbour says Jennifer Coolidge scolded him for not really strangling her in We Have a Ghost scene
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Listen, David Harbour will happily decapitate a demogorgon with the Atlantean sword in Stranger Things. He'll even expertly throw a star ornament into someone's eye in Violent Night. But he draws the line at throttling actual superstar Jennifer Coolidge.
The actor, who stars opposite Coolidge in Netflix's family-friendly horror film We Have a Ghost, revealed that the actress once berated him on set for not fully committing to a scene in which his character, a ghost named Ernest, chokes her character with his phantom mouth hand.
"We have this amazing moment where there's a CGI thing that shoots out of my face and it's a hand and it strangles her," he said on Monday's episode of Late Night With Seth Meyers. "So I did it with my hand [during filming] and she was like, really pissed. She stopped the take and was like, 'David! You've gotta really strangle me! You gotta strangle me!'"
Harbour simply couldn't do it. "I was like, 'I'm not gonna murder America's sweetheart!'" He explained. "She was like, 'Come on!'"
Still, the Stranger Things star said that he learned a lot about their shared art by working alongside Coolidge on the movie.
"There is a scene in the film where I frighten her and she runs screaming and jumps out a window," he told host Seth Meyers earlier. "I swear we did about 15 takes and every take she was like, 'Let's try it again. Maybe I could go like this [spooky, scary noises].' I've never seen every animal, every sound — it was a lesson. It was an acting class."
Netflix (2) David Harbour and Jennifer Coolidge in 'We Have a Ghost.'
Directed by Christopher Landon, We Have a Ghost sees a family — helmed by dad Anthony Mackie — move into a new home only to find it already occupied by Ernest (Harbour). Instead of hightailing it out of there, they see the opportunity for what it really is: a chance to go viral online. That, of course, attracts the attention of a variety of individuals, including a government agent played by Tig Notaro and Coolidge's quirky TV medium.
While their characters might not get on in the film, Harbour said that he was in awe of Coolidge in real life. "She is as amazing as you think she would be," he said. "It's just what you see on a talk show or at an awards show – it just is that, and it's not that way with some of us."
We Have a Ghost will haunt Netflix starting Feb. 24. Watch Harbour discuss working with Coolidge — and the final season of Stranger Things — in the clip above.
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