In director Tommy Wirkola's 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 , take a wealthy compound hostage. Unfortunately for them, these mercenaries just made Santa’s naughty list.
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?Maybe either because of the performance or because of the camera move. The technical aspects of the shot. 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.
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?"
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?" 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, 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.
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...