Recently I have borne witness to the mental mayhem of press tours. I stress the mental aspect because the meticulousness of the planning that goes into a tour — with studio and personal publicists keeping tabs on everyone, and coordinating things to the minute — is the sugary glaze slathered over the toll it must take on those involved.
So it was for the press tour behind Gran Turismo, the film promoted by this issue’s cover star, David Harbour. I met David in the chic, riviera-style courtyard of the Corinthia, London’s junket hotel-in-chief, and immediately he earned my sympathy. Fresh off the red-eye from New York, he was in the hometown of his wife, Lily Allen, and had arrived in time to see her in the new West End production of The Pillowman the night before. But he was in London for only 48 hours — thereafter, he was to continue the slog to Australia, and his jet lag had just begun. Fiddling with the Partagás D4 I had brought him as a kind of peace pipe, our conversation began.
David Harbour’s success cannot be described as overnight. He put in his 10,000 hours under the radar, enduring mixed fortunes as he went. Subsequently, though, he has become nearly as big a phenomenon as the show for which he is best known, Stranger Things. Like many of the actors we feature on our cover, he is proof positive of The Rake’s thesis that a man can (and should) become his most essential self as he gets older — and Harbour has had sex-symbol status thrown in as well, for good measure.
