Thunderbolts* star David Harbour (Alexei Shostakov) joins GQ to reveal his 10 Essentials. The American actor breaks down his daily essentials: from his silk robe (“it may be one of the most indulgent purchases I’ve ever made”) to his mindfulness book (“it’s useful for creating reality”). Watch the full episode of GQ’s 10 Essentials, as David Harbour reveals 10 things he can’t live without.
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00:00there you go hey i'll cherish this forever
00:07hey gq i'm david harbour and these are my 10 essential items
00:18i do think we meant we need to have a bit of a conversation because since the decline of the
00:32briefcase for years i did the backpack and then you kind of get a little bit older you upgrade the
00:38backpack and then you still look like a kid going to school wearing a backpack i don't know what the
00:45answer is and i'm not saying this is it it's a canvas very high quality it's a mess but it's not
00:51quite a purse a man purse it's not a fanny pack it's like a shoulder bag that you wear this can
00:59hold a pair of sweatpants it can hold my scripts it can hold like books anything i need on the subway
01:05if i'm running around but this is my solution to the backpack briefcase problem that we are having
01:11in this modern era and then i also got like whatever i'm working on like usually so i can
01:16just pull it out when like this is i don't know if i'm allowed to show these things but
01:21monday we're shooting something which i need to still learn my lines for
01:27pull the right camera i find that the digitalness of my life has made it so that it's kind of like a
01:37blur and when i take pictures on my phone i sort of have them all in my bank of pictures but they
01:43don't really register as images to me they don't really register as memories they don't really
01:47register as things anymore they're just data whereas when i take a picture of something it feels
01:52like a memory season two of stranger thing it's kind of when i first started using the camera you
01:59know around season three they got so paranoid about leaks and spoilers and all that stuff that you have
02:04like the spoiler police on set and it makes you pull out a camera and everyone just tenses up
02:10and it just makes it no fun
02:11ah my next essential item is
02:20this robe turnbull and asser silk dressing gown i love this thing it may be one of the most
02:34indulgent purchases i've ever made and probably one of the most expensive things i own it's cashmere
02:40it's silk on the inside it was the fanciest and it's also just it just feels the nicest it just feels
02:47fantastic and it's really nice to just like lounge around in the house in and i love it you know you're
02:53not completely naked running around so it's tasteful i've worn it in some zoom meetings for sure
03:00and i've gotten lots of compliments on it too but that's as far as i've taken it there's only into
03:05the digital realm oh my god look she doesn't like to be on camera her name begins with a k i won't say
03:13what it is she's my personal assistant up until the time i was 43 years old seven years ago i had
03:22never had a personal assistant i would always just been me wandering the world and then on the movie
03:28black widow in my contract it had just been put in that i got to have a local personal assistant
03:34and it was a revelation at first i had nothing for this person to do i would just make up things for
03:40them to do like send flowers to my mom and like random stuff because i felt so self-conscious that i
03:46had a personal assistant like you know helping me out i had nothing for them to do then very quickly
03:50about a month in i there are a lot of tasks that a personal assistant can do for you that you don't
03:55have to do that make your life just so fantastic covid hit i didn't have to go back to stranger
04:01things for a while and so i went to detroit to do a movie with steven soderberg and the first team
04:07pa was this lovely very smart very talented young woman whose name begins with a k and as the movie
04:16ended i was like what are you doing next and she said oh i'm looking to get into being a personal
04:22assistant i really do need her there especially when i work because just call times and getting
04:28new places and knowing what i'm doing for the day and all the relationships all sort of go through
04:34her at this point whole david harper system would shut down and it would just be me kind of lying in
04:39bed eating i don't know muffins or something stone island sweatpants tracksuits look i'm even
04:48i'm even wearing them right now i always like travel with a couple of these just because i love
04:57the brand and i love the look i love the way they feel and so i just wear them all the time when i
05:04don't you know need to look dressed up i just i'm always wearing stone island sweatpants but i will say
05:09sometimes i have like the top and the bottom and i'll i'll only wear one patch i'm only a one patch
05:15outfit guy so i'll take the top off or i'll take the bottom off i won't do i won't do double patch
05:21i've done it in the past i think it's a mistake
05:23i'm very obsessed with one particular brand of sunglasses a particular designer called jacques
05:33marie mage and these are the eves frames i know jeff goldblum works with him he has a there's a
05:39goldblum frame when i sort of hit a level of fame back 10 years ago when stranger things started you
05:46know you have days where you want to walk around and say hi to everybody and then there are days
05:50when you just want to go to the cvs and pick up toothpaste or whatever and you don't want to talk
05:55to anybody and so you have to develop some you know disguises and so i was wearing hats a lot
06:01and i had a girlfriend at the time tell me that i don't know if this is true at all someone please
06:08google this if you wear hats all the time do you lose your hair that's what i hear is like it pulls
06:14at your hair or something and you lose your hair and so she was very concerned about me losing my hair
06:19so i got invested in sunglasses i like a nice shade of glass they can sort of pass for a normal glass
06:26too like they they're not totally sunglasses they're like a light enough thing that they can
06:32look like even in the evening you can sort of wear them and get away with it or do i just look like a
06:38jerk wearing sunglasses in the evening i'm not sure but i'm committed a knit sweatshirt from tom brown
06:47that i've had forever at the point where it's already getting holes in it and stuff like that in the
06:53winter i don't like a big bulky coat especially walking around new york so i tend to like layer
06:58up so i'll have a shirt and then maybe like a flannel and then you put this on and then you have like
07:04kind of overcoat on over it and it's perfect because it gives you that warm layer but you know it's not
07:11too bulky i've been looking for uniforms i don't like to think too much about clothes i don't even like
07:16to think too much about a food in terms of going out to eat i like to think about creative things
07:23like characters and stories and narratives and things like that but in terms of the other aspects
07:27of my life if you could give me a uniform i would wear it
07:30we're on the analog theme this great i'm pretty sure they're british smithson company they do
07:42journals they do different like desk accoutrement they do stationary personalized stationary and i have
07:49some personalized stationary which is really cool by the way but they also make diaries smithson i have
07:56my calendar on my phone it says like what i'm supposed to be doing but this is great because you
08:01can just look at it and it gives you more of a wider lens on what you're up to you know and as you can
08:08see most of it is filled in not in my handwriting but in my assistant's handwriting and so it'll have
08:14you know here we are uh well look gq shoot timings tbd we didn't know when they would be but they're
08:22now this will be kind of a nice little mini spoiler but it has nothing to spoil this is stranger things
08:28shooting so this says levy unit which is sean levy our executive producer was shooting on stage scene
08:34825 over 26 20 blah and shooting all this week this is my asl tutor i was learning sign language for
08:45this new hbo show i'm doing and then apparently i had a zoom meeting oh i can't show you what that was
08:51though again in the ever futile quest to get away from my phone i use my phone for my alarm a lot
09:01it's terrible because i mean you use your phone for everything so the minute you pick it up you just
09:06go immediately to your digital world and so when i do have this i'm able to set my alarm have a thing
09:14and put my phone like in the bathroom or somewhere else where i can at least have my first moments of
09:20the day be filled with me as opposed to my digital identity so you know it's pretty simple casio alarm
09:30clock
09:31it's almost like a shovel as opposed to a book it's not something that's intellectual it's almost
09:41something that's actually like useful for creating reality it's almost like the most profound quote in
09:48it is seemingly so simple that it feels almost silly but like breathing in i know i'm breathing in
09:55breathing out i know i'm breathing out like that seems dumb when you just say it but if you sit
10:01there and do it for 10 minutes and the present reality starts to come into focus and the world
10:06becomes real i mean so many of the characters i play need this i feel like the funny thing about
10:11you know dramas is that we're literally playing characters that just haven't figured it out so
10:18if they would just read books like this there wouldn't be much to watch definitely think that
10:23red guardian alexei shostakov if he just sat and realized that everything's impermanent nothing
10:32lasts he might not be so attached to this craving for fame and for notoriety that is destroying his life
10:40and his relationships so alexei if you're watching
10:44this is for you
10:48thanks gq those are my 10 essential items
10:54you