David Harbour has dropped out of a starring role in new movie Behemoth! weeks after missing an event tied to the series finale of Stranger Things.
Searchlight Pictures confirmed to Variety on Tuesday, January 6, that Harbour, 50, will no longer star in director Tony Gilroy’s music drama, in which he was supposed to appear opposite Pedro Pascal and Olivia Wilde. (DeuxMoi was first to report news of Harbour’s exit on Tuesday.)
According to Variety, citing multiple sources, Harbour stepped aside from the movie to take some time to rest after being overwhelmed by the recent hype around the final season of Stranger Things. The fifth season premiered in three parts on Netflix between November and December 2025, with the final two-hour episode premiering on Wednesday, December 31.
Harbour’s Behemoth! role has already been recast, per Variety, though the actor’s replacement is not yet known.
Us Weekly has reached out to Harbour’s representatives and Searchlight Pictures for comment.
Harbour’s Behemoth! exit comes just weeks after he skipped the Paley Center’s Stranger Things: The Final Season Celebration in New York City on December 18.
The actor was initially advertised to appear alongside several of his castmates on the red carpet, followed by a screening and conversation. However, the Paley Center confirmed to People on the day that Harbour would “not be present due to a scheduling conflict.”
Just 24 hours prior to the event, TMZ reported that Harbour was spotted acting strangely at a bar in Encinitas, California, just outside of San Diego. According to the outlet, Harbour took a fellow patron’s hat at the bar and allegedly ran out of the venue with it, calling to the fellow patron, “C’mon dude, f***ing get me.”
The other customer followed Harbour and asked, “What the f*** did I do to you?” before retrieving his hat, per TMZ. There was no report of a physical altercation between the two.
Harbour has not publicly addressed the allegations and his representatives didn’t immediately respond to Us’ request for comment at the time.
Back in October 2025, Harbour’s personal life was the subject of social media chatter after his estranged wife, Lily Allen, released her new album, West End Girl, and insinuated that the actor cheated on her. (The couple separated in late 2024 after four years of marriage.)
“Been no romance since we wed / ‘Why aren’t we f***ing, baby?’ Yeah, that’s what you said / But you let me think it was me in my head / And nothing to do with them girls in your bed,” Allen sang on the track “Sleepwalking.”
In an October interview with British Vogue, Allen, 40, said, “There are things that are on the record that I experienced within my marriage, but that’s not to say that it’s all gospel. It is inspired by what went on in the relationship.”
For his part, Harbour was coy about their separation in an April 2025 interview with GQ Hype.
“I’m protective of the people and the reality of my life. There’s no use in that form of engaging [with rumors] because it’s all based on hysterical hyperbole,” he said, adding that he did not want to encourage a “salacious s***show of humiliation.”
