David Harbour says ‘DTF: St. Louis’ has ‘the most intimate work’ he’s ever done

HBO’s newest miniseries finds Jason Bateman, Linda Cardellini and David Harbour in a love triangle gone wrong.

DTF: St. Louis, which premiered its first episode on Sunday, finds three adults who have middle-age malaise stuck in a love triangle that leads to one of them dying.

At the end of the premiere, viewers discover that person is Harbour’s Floyd Smernitch. Even though he meets his demise, the rest of the season takes place over a nonlinear timeline and Harbour continues as a main character throughout it all. He told ABC Audio all about what it was like to work with Bateman and Cardellini on the new dark comedy.

“These are two actors that I’ve admired for years and years, and I got to do some of the best scenes of my whole career, some of the most intimate work I’ve ever done, with these people,” Harbour said. “The scripts were very unexpected — the twists and turns, the way people react to things, who these people are. Floyd is a character that I deeply love. I find him just tragic and wonderful and weird and beautiful. And so it was just like a joy every day to come to work.”

Floyd works as an American Sign Language interpreter. Harbour said he had to learn how to sign ASL for the role.

“It’s hard, especially because you want to do it justice, because it’s its own … language, it’s own form of expression [and] it’s so deeply intrinsic to who Floyd is as a person.”

As the season continues, Harbour says viewers will discover why ASL is so important to Floyd.

“There is this moment when you really understand what ASL means to Floyd,” Harbour said. “And so, in that way, you can see that it’s something that I had to really invest in.” 

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