Neil Patrick Harris shares his 11-year-old daughter’s surprising reaction to ‘The Shining’
Neil Patrick Harris’ 11-year-old daughter had a different opinion than her father about the level of horror in “The Shining.”
During an interview with Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show” which aired on July 27, Harris said that his daughter, Harper, made a bombastic claim on the 1980 horror classic based on the novel by Stephen King.
The interview kicked off with Fallon asking what the actor's children were interested in. Harris shares 11-year-old twins Harper and Gideon with his husband of nearly eight years David Burtka.
While his son is more interested in video games, Harris said his daughter gravitates toward horror movies.
“What do you say to a girl who wants to watch horror movies?” Harris asked. “Like, do you say, ‘Absolutely not?’ Because then she wants to watch them more.”
The 49-year-old actor told Fallon some of the scary movies and television shows his daughter has recently seen, including “It” also based on a novel by King and Netflix’s sci-fi horror drama “Stranger Things.”
“She keeps asking me, ‘Papa, what is the scariest movie that you’ve ever seen?’” Harris told the host. “And I know where this is going ‘cause I said, ‘I’m not going to tell you the scariest movie,’ ‘cause she’s going to want to watch that.”
Harris said that his daughter insisted on knowing the scariest movie that he had ever seen, so he caved and told her that it was “The Shining.” Naturally, his daughter asked if she was allowed to watch the movie, to which Harris initially responded, “No, you can’t watch ‘The Shining.’ ‘The Shining’ is really psychologically terrifying.”
His daughter was insistent on watching the horror movie, so Harris reluctantly agreed to let her watch it in recent weeks. Fallon joked that it was a “beautiful father-daughter moment” while Harris said, “I don’t know if it was a good call.”
While Harris retained that the movie “is still really scary,” when Harris asked what his daughter thought of the movie, she told him candidly, “I’m mildly disappointed.”
“She said, ‘That was the scariest movie you’ve ever seen?’” he recalled his daughter asking. “I was like, ‘It’s not scary like 2022 scary.’ It’s not jump-scare.”
Despite claiming that the movie wasn’t all that scary, Harris told Fallon, “She has slept in our bed for like the last four nights. I think it was a little scarier than she thought.”Harris and Burtka, who have been together for over 18 years, welcomed their twins Harper and Gideon via surrogate in October 2010.
For their 10th birthday, the former “How I Met Your Mother” star shared a touching post on Instagram to celebrate the milestone, penning a sweet message alongside a photo of the kids posing on the waterfront.
“Ten years! This last decade has absolutely whizzed by — and I’ve loved it,” he wrote. “I’ve never felt more tired and broken down, nor more awake and alive. My parenting skills are both terrible and amazing. Having children makes you grow in a thousand different directions, and I am just so thankful to my kids for all of it (and to @dbelicious for his unstoppable, handsome, tireless devotion and commitment to being a parent).”
Harris concluded his caption with a sweet sentiment about his children, writing, “Kind, smart, clever, hilarious, savvy, intuitive, ingenious — they are my absolute prides and joys. I love them with every ounce of my being.”
While Harris is spending his daughter's pre-teen years bonding with her over horror movies, just four years ago, the father-daughter duo had a different routine in place, one that included shopping, pedicures and crudo.
"Fantastic Papa/Daughter date yesterday," Harris wrote on Instagram at the time to mark the occasion. "This is the best age! For both of us!"