David Harbour explained what his acceptance speech at the SAG Awards was all about and why it caused his co-star Winona Ryder to venture on her epic face journey.
The 23rd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards saw the cast of Stranger Things receive the award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. In addition, it gave us an outstanding performance from actress Winona Ryder. During the speech, Ryder went through an emotional facial journey. Ranging from "confusion" to "bewilderment," this ensued many memes during Harbour's acceptance speech. Harbour now explained why.
"She couldn't hear me!" Harbour said to People. “Which I was confused by, because I was screaming! But apparently, she couldn’t hear me.”
This would explain a lot. Although why Ryder couldn't hear Harbour is still uncertain, People attribute it to the acoustics of the venue.
"She is just such a porous, expressive woman and actress — I think it just flowed through her like every experience — and I loved it," Harbour said of his co-star.
Harbour then went on to talk about the purpose of his speech. “What I was really trying to say in the speech was not so much political as it was cultural,” he explained. “I feel like [we] do have a responsibility as influencers in this culture that creates good or evil. We have a responsibility and we should be aware of that — that is really what I wanted to talk about.”
Harbour also stated, “A lot of Hollywood female characters are not treated as ‘bad a--’ — I wanted to talk about that … the women characters in our story that have such power."
He continued by saying that he rehearsed his speech with several of his co-stars (excluding Ryder) prior to the show, but didn't get to mention his points on female characters like he would have, due to time constraints. Not touching base with Ryder may also be why she didn't hear what the speech was about.