David Harbour says he was ‘worried’ about paying rent only seven years ago

David Harbour has reflected on facing difficulties at a stage in his career during which he was “worried” about paying rent.

The Stranger Things star has returned to screens this week, reprising his role as Jim Hopper in the fourth season of the hit Netflix series.

In a new interview with The Big Issue, Harbour opened up about challenges he has faced both personal and professional.

The actor, now 47, said he enjoyed modest success when he turned 35, stating that “n my mind, I’d been fairly successful. I could pay the rent on an apartment, have food on the table and I was very happy about that”.

Harbour said, however, that by then he had given up on his dream of appearing on a talk show.

“And then it hit very hard a month after I hit 40. I remember going in and I was very upset because I still was in this place where I didn’t have any money. I was worrying about how I was going to pay my rent,” said Harbour.

A year later, he made his debut as Hopper in the first season of Stranger Things, which was released on Netflix in 2016.

“I thought [Stranger Things] was one of these situations, which you get a lot when you’re a journeyman actor where they’ve offered the role to a star.”

He added that he had not expected Stranger Things to become the huge success that it is. “Even when we were shooting it, I felt like this is a show I would love but nobody’s going to watch,” said Harbour.

Elsewhere in the interview, the actor opened up about his bipolar diagnosis. He was instituionalised when he was in his mid-twenties “after an episode”.

Part one of season four Stranger Things is available to watch on Netflix.

You can read the full interview with David Harbour in The Big Issue, available from vendors or via an online subscription.