David Harbour on playing Marvel’s Red Guardian and Santa Clause in ‘Violent Night’: They are complicated fathers

Red and white may not be your ideal superhero colour palate, but David Harbour wears it well. The actor, who smashed his way into the superhero genre with his role as Marvel‘s Red Guardian, will be back just in time for some ‘season’s beatings’, this time around as Santa Clause in ‘Violent Night’.

With the actor already playing dad to a teen – Eleven, in ‘Stranger Things’ and also a father figure to Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow and Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ETimes had to ask him about embracing the ‘tough-dad’ role on the big screen. “It’s good and bad,” David says and goes on to explain, “It’s challenging to realise that you are not the young man you think in your head you are. The great thing about the roles I have been given is that they are complicated fathers.”

Elaborating further on playing a superhero dad and Father Christmas, himself, Harbour adds, “I think you are lucky as an actor when you find complex roles that certainly have some of the tropes in them. They are both fathers, but they are both complicated guys in very different ways. One is 10,000 years old and was a Viking and had all kinds of violence in his life that he is using now and the other is sort of a failure (of a father) who failed to live up to his true potential. He struggles with that idea and is a bit of a narcissist.”

While David may love playing the regular Joe by day and badass by night, don’t expect this one to take up roles as the loveable sitcom dad anytime soon. “I think if I was just the normal sitcom dad, I would be very depressed playing that sort of father role,” he said.

Revealing why he would pick a complicated character with questionable morals over the easy-breezy one, he says, “I really like roles that are complicated. Luckily I do play these fatherly types who have their own peculiar complexities and deep humanity that I love exploring.”

‘Violent Night’ which hits the big screens on December 2, centres around a team of mercenaries who break into a wealthy family compound on Christmas Eve, taking everyone inside hostage. However, the team is in for a surprise when Santa Claus comes down the chimney and shows them why he is no saint.

The film directed by Tommy Wirkola, also stars Emmy winner John Leguizamo, Cam Gigandet, Alex Hassell, Alexis Louder, Edi Patterson and Beverly D’Angelo.