David Harbour

For twenty years David Harbour was the actor you recognised without being able to name. He is in Brokeback Mountain, Revolutionary Road, Quantum of Solace, End of Watch and Black Mass, usually as a cop, a company man, or a friend who lets somebody down. He was forty one when Stranger Things made him a household face as Chief Jim Hopper, a part that earned him two Primetime Emmy nominations.

Hopper works because Harbour plays size as a disguise. He is a big man who carries himself like someone apologising for the space, and the aggression always arrives a beat after the grief it is covering. That combination of bulk and shame is his whole instrument, and it is why he is so convincing as men who used to be something better.

The leading-man phase since has been uneven and he seems to know it. The 2019 Hellboy did not land, and the more interesting work has been comic: a foul-tempered Santa Claus in Violent Night, a washed-up driver in Gran Turismo, and Alexei the Red Guardian in Black Widow and Thunderbolts, a genuinely funny creation built entirely on delusion about his own past glory. He is a rare case of an actor whose supporting work is consistently sharper than his top billing.