“Stranger Things” star David Harbour is slaying this Christmas, in more ways than one. In “Violent Night,” he plays a new version of Santa Claus where he’ll risk it all to save the one person who still believes in him.
David Harbour is not the Santa Claus you remember.
He’s downright murderous in the new holiday action-comedy “Violent Night.”
David Harbour: “It has this ‘John Wick,’ sort of ‘Nobody,’ ‘Atomic Blonde’ type action to it. It’s a kung fu, ‘Matrix’-y sort of movie, but what it really does is it combines it with a Christmas movie, which is another completely different genre.”
This Saint Nick ain’t so jolly, and this year, he’s forced to fight off a team of bad guys holding a wealthy family hostage on Christmas Eve.
David Harbour: “We looked at that picture of- on the Coca-Cola, the iconic Santa, saccharine Coca-Cola, ho-ho-ho guy, with the little glasses and the whole thing, and we tried to recreate that.”
David endured rigorous training to fill Santa’s iconic red suit, training so intense it left him 70 pounds heavier.
David Harbour: “It was a lot of eating food. Uh, that’s the first thing I did was, I went to, you know, Denny’s, first thing and ate like a bunch of sandwiches.”
But he wasn’t alone. Co-star John Leguizamo also had to prepare for the brutal fight scenes.
John Leguizamo: “The fight sequences were so dope but hard, man. It was like about 50 moves for the last sequence, 50 moves of, like, serious punching, and yeah, no, I couldn’t get out of bed the following morning.”
And who knew Christmas decorations could be so lethal?
Tommy Wirkola, director, “Violent Night”: “We use the Christmas tree, the Christmas decorations, the Christmas lights, the snow blower, the ice skates.”
“Violent Night” is now playing in theaters.
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