Private Practice

Big-budget films may be his job, but Harrison Ford prefers life outside the spotlight

If there's one thing we know about Harrison Ford, it's that he likes his privacy.

Famously low-profile in life and guarded in interviews, the cool, measured actor is a man of few words, three of which he used up recently to condemn America's current fascination with all things celebrity.

''It's not normal," the 63-year-old Chicago native said while in Boston to promote his new movie, ''Firewall," opening Friday. In an increasingly techno-savvy world where people are able and inclined to access just about everything, it's no surprise that Ford -- who is based in Los Angeles now but still retreats to his Wyoming ranch whenever possible -- would prefer to be a target of limited interest. Of course, that goal would be easier if he hadn't starred in several of the most successful blockbusters ever made.

''Firewall," a film with scary global privacy issues at its center, arrives at a time when there's no lack of attention being paid to reports that a fourth Indiana Jones movie is gathering steam. In a way this provides a twofer moment, putting the leading man on the spot long enough to confirm that another Spielberg-Lucas collaboration is ''within striking distance," possibly close enough to start filming this summer. But Ford won't say much beyond this, either because he can't or because he knows that it bleeds focus from the work at hand. He needs to generate enthusiasm for his current release, which is too easy to dismiss as yet another action-thriller in which the heroic everyman rises up to thwart bad guys who are messing with his life.

''Harrison Ford has his own sort of genre -- it's a Harrison Ford Thriller," said ''Firewall" costar Paul Bettany ('' Wimbledon"), whose chillingly casual villain is arguably more memorable than screenwriter Joe Forte's cutting-edge cyber-heist framework. ''It's a tricky thing if you do something in particular very well," Bettany added, speaking by telephone from Los Angeles. ''He's made a lot of thrillers; it's a thriller."

Even more candid was director Richard Loncraine (another ''Wimbledon" vet), also speaking from Los Angeles: ''The cliche would be that Harrison Ford does Harrison Ford extremely well. Well, so do all stars, really. I think that Harrison Ford is not the most successful actor in the world for no reason.... He knows about the broad brush, and how big to be."

Touché. Although, most people would say he misjudged the canvas pretty badly in ''Hollywood Homicide."

While his roles have ranged from ''Star Wars" spaceship jockey Han Solo to the president of the United States (''Air Force One"), it's fair to say that Ford hasn't much changed from film to film. He's best known for the parts he wasn't supposed to get: Han Solo came as the accidental byproduct of reading lines with auditioning actresses, Indiana Jones couldn't wait around for Tom Selleck, and Jack Ryan fell off the too-pricey plate of Alec Baldwin. Other career highlights include ''American Graffiti," ''Blade Runner," ''Witness,"''Working Girl," ''The Fugitive," ''Sabrina," and the underappreciated ''Mosquito Coast."

His reticence and meteoric rise have inspired a number of half-true Hollywood legends (yes, he was a carpenter; no, he didn't build cabinets for George Lucas, though he did build an office entrance for Francis Ford Coppola). But more important to his fans, the same reliable purse-lipped face looks out from nearly every DVD box, plus or minus some wrinkles and facial hair. And these days, the plots don't even have to vary much.

''There's only about five stories out there anyway," Loncraine quipped. So if you think ''Firewall" resembles ''Frantic," wait till you hold it up against non-Ford thrillers such as ''Ransom," ''Hostage," and the Loncraine-directed ''Bellman and True." Originality isn't the specialty of most popcorn movies; fans usually go in with that bar hung very low.

Thus, in ''Firewall," Ford plays Jack Stanfield, a Seattle bank security specialist who is hijacked by thieves with an elaborate plan to make him crack his own virtual safeguards (known as firewalls, for the computer illiterate) and incriminate himself in the cyberspace theft of millions of dollars. To set Jack up, the thugs invade every corner of his life, stealing his identity and learning all his secrets. Then they take his family hostage (natch), and raise the stakes until, his calm voice stuffed and knotted into what's become a trademark snarl, he's compelled to do things that go against his better nature -- like crashing through a window and tumbling down a staircase without the aid of a stuntman.

Ford, who in person looks fighting fit but a bit too well groomed and professorial to mess with trouble, hasn't lost his stamina or appetite for big-budget movies, which is part of the reason he doesn't slow down or make smaller films.

''It's fair to say that [blockbusters] are my job. If you're a fireman and you get woken up in the middle of the night, you don't want to roll out to a trash fire in a dumpster; you want to meet the beast."

Besides, he added with the barest of laughs, ''I'm not any sorer than I was 20 years ago -- which is fairly sore."

Though he's known to be opinionated and exacting on set, he steadfastly professes to have no interest in directing (''I'm happy with the job I've got," he said). On the other hand, he recognizes that a career should show growth, which he argues can happen within genres as well as across them.

''The job of the actor is to try and differentiate and grade and color so that you don't become a one-trick pony," he explained. Later adding: ''People really only know me through the films I've made."

Which brings us back to the privacy thing.

As both criminals and lawmakers fight to gain access to our Internet habits and unlimited other areas, one wonders whether Ford thinks his new movie makes any scary statements about civil rights under siege.

''It depends on what it is that you don't want people to know," he said diplomatically. ''We certainly are in a situation where nobody has any privacy. And eventually everybody knows everything."

So then if someone were to ask him, say, ''Do you have any plans to marry longtime girlfriend Calista Flockhart?" the actor would reply?

''Uh, that's private."

They'll have to hold his family hostage to get it out of him.

- By Janice Page