David Harbour broke down his decision to put on a prosthetic for his dark comedy DTF St. Louis.
In the new HBO show, which premiered on Sunday, March 1, Harbour, 50, plays Floyd, who is involved in a complicated love triangle with wife Carol (Linda Cardellini) and coworker Clark (Jason Bateman). Floyd is self-conscious when viewers meet him in the pilot — especially after he gained weight in recent years, which called for Harbour to wear a fake stomach.
“It is used a bit for comedic effect, but also I wanted it to play as he uses food in a certain way, and to play as the reality of a guy who’s not getting hits on these sites, and various things,” Harbour told TV Insider about the dating app Floyd ultimately starts to use to find sexual connections with local strangers. “We wanted to highlight some of the struggles that he has.”
Harbour called the prosthetic “incredible,” adding, “It’s so funny. I keep thinking back to the prosthetic because … I don’t know that I really needed it. I mean, it only added [a little bit].”
He continued: “I could have really just bulked up a little bit more, and I think I would have been fine, but it was nice to have, because there’s something about having a mask that allows you a freedom.”
Harbour described the process of putting on the false stomach as time-consuming.
“When it was just under my clothes, it was just a suit that I could zip up myself, and it’d be easy, take it off during lunch. But then, when we had to see it, even just the belly part, they had to put on the whole thing, and it took about an hour,” he explained about getting a new prosthetic every day. “They’re printed out of latex. It was about 30 pounds, so it’s like a vest [that came down and] wrapped around the love handles a little bit.”
Harbour recalled spirit gum being used to attach the prosthetic as the team “put it down [the vest] then I’d wear it for a nice 14-hour day of shooting. Then at the end, you’d have to peel it off, and it would be all sweaty.”
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Harbour isn’t the only actor to opt for a prosthetic recently. Paramount+’s Landman shocked viewers when Billy Bob Thornton had a full-frontal scene.
However, cocreator Christian Wallace clarified in January that the moment “wasn’t an actual full-frontal” scene for Thornton, 70, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “We had an on-set intimacy coordinator, and the original prosthetic she brought in made everyone laugh. We were like, ‘No.’”
After seeing the size of the original prosthetic, the crew opted for “a more humble alternative” for Thornton.
“It is surprising to me that people think that was actually Billy doing full-frontal nudity,” Wallace added. “So I should say props to our intimacy coordinator for making it extremely realistic, and to the props team. They had a whole rig, as Billy called it: ‘Got my rig on.’”
