Entertainment

These Photos Of David Harbour Looking Like His ‘Stranger Things’ Castmates Will Blow Your Mind

by S. Atkinson
Kevin Winter/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Buckle up and prepare to enter the twilight zone. Once upon a time, Hawkins' Chief of Police wasn't as grizzled and cynical as he seems on your favorite show. Nope, David Harbour's Instagram photo looking like Will Byers prove that as a child, he bore an eerily close resemblance to the character played by actor Noah Schnapp. While the photo shows that both Schnapp and Habour boasted huge eyes and a button nose as children, the similarity is really in the hair. Just like Joyce's son, Harbour proudly sported a bowl haircut. There's the same watchful expression at play, too.

The haircut aspect makes sense, when you consider the factual and fictional timelines. According to IMDb, Harbour was born in 1975, meaning if you assume he's somewhere between 5 and 10 years old in the photo (it's hard to imagine he's any older), that the snap was taken anytime between 1980 and 1985. According to PopSugar, Season 1 of Stranger Things takes place in 1983. As such, while the post is funny, it's not exactly a coincidence that mini David is rocking a Will Byers mushroom cut. In a Huffington Post piece about her childhood in the '80s, writer Millie Kerr recalls her mother taking her and her brother to the local barber shop on a monthly basis for "life ruining '80s hair" — bowl cuts. This was just the go-to look for kids' hair at that time.

But of course, the most luckless member of Mike's friendship group isn't the only cast member that younger Harbour bore a resemblance to as a kid. The internet promptly lost its collective mind just two days earlier when the New York City native started releasing photos which showed just how similar a younger Harbour looked to your favorite asshole-turned-adorable babysitter, Steve Harrington, or at least the actor who played him, Joe Keery.

With his customary charm, the actor framed the mischievous post as a cliched attack on Hollywood's lack of ideas and obsession with nostalgia. Referring to his resemblance to Keery, Harbour claimed in the caption to be "sick of these slick, handsome reboots" and urged his followers to "watch the original." And how could they not? It was hard for anyone with a pulse to look away from a picture of the younger Hopper. Hair vertiginous enough to conjure up Mean Girl's claim that big hair is "full of secrets," those pearly whites, the same affinity for plaid as the man who would come, snatching hearts, after him.

But it wasn't just one photo. Clearly thriving on the delirious fan reaction, we got another snap showing how similar Keery and a younger Harbour looked. The clothes are subtly different, the vast hair is gone and still, the similarity persists. This isn't about the trimmings or accessories, they genuinely have almost identical facial structure.

First Keery, now Schnapp. What's next? Will we get a picture showing the sheriff as a dead-ringer for a young Winona Ryder? Decked out in a mustache and a sweater vest at college, looking similar to Randy Havens' adorkable science teacher, Mr. Clarke? Or even in a photo taken from the future, with Harbour aging into a silver fox who's a double for the sinister but ever-sophisticated Dr. Brenner? At this point, Harbour's proven he's more chameleon than man, able to assume the physical appearance of at least two members of the cast.

Up until this point, fans have been led to believe the supernatural aspect of Stranger Things is located in the Upside Down or in Eleven's remarkable brain. Little did they realize that the most goosebump-inducing aspect of the series is Harbour's shapeshifting face.