Ford Tough
He’s been in front of the lens for nearly 40 years and his characters have become household names. Harrison Ford gets serious about his new film Firewall, the making of a fourth Indiana Jones movie, and what makes him tick.
Flash back to a raining night in northern California, where an amateur journalist was waiting… and waiting… to interview Happy Days star Henry Winkler for the movie Heroes he was shooting in Santa Rosa (it turned out he had been ill). The scene: a motel coffee shop where the young journalist, who didn’t drink coffee, was drinking coffee while pondering the career that was about to die before it was born. “You look worse than I feel,” a friendly man a few seats away said to me. Conversation began with this concerned stranger, who had just flown in from England to play a supporting role in Heroes after making a film he said “would either be one of the most popular movies of all time or I’ll be so embarrassed by it that my kids will never let me leave the house!” What followed was a conversation that lasted over three hours, covering everything from our hopes and dreams to the effects of movies on our lives. One can’t imagine the course this journalist’s life would have taken if I’d have flown home the next day without my Winkler interview as I was inclined to do if Harrison Ford hadn’t shown me a rare kindness that evening. (Two years after that I happened to interview him for The Empire Strikes Back, the first of five more massive films spawned by Star Wars, the global record-buster that Ford had described to me that night as him “running around in a big, cold studio in tights with a huge dog-like character, shooting a toy gun.”)
Later, as the ultimate action hero Indiana Jones in director Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ford would proclaim, “It’s not the age. It’s the mileage!” Indeed, at 63, the smart, self-effacing, media-shy superstar has decades of blockbusters to his credit and a worldwide audience that has shelled out a whopping $5.5 billion to see him in such lasting hits as the three Indiana Jones pictures, the original Star Wars trilogy, Witness, What Lies Beneath, The Fugitive, Blade Runner, Working Girl, Air Force One and a pair of film in which her portrayed CIA analyst Jack Ryan, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. Despite a recent trio of instantly forgettable films (Random Hearts, K-19: The Widowmaker, Hollywood Homicide), don’t bet against this former carpenter living up to his successful past with his latest effort, the thriller Firewall costarring Virginia Madsen. In it, Ford plays Jack Stanfield, a computer security specialist who has developed a highly effective security system for a Seattle-based bank to protect its financial holdings from Internet hackers – effective enough, that is, until a mastermind thief (Paul Bettany) takes his family hostage and uses Jack to breach the system and steal $100 million.
Craig Modderno: Why should people go see Firewall? In fact, I tried to see the film prior to our interview but the publicist said it wasn’t available to be shown.
Harrison Ford: Who told you that? Tell me their name. That pisses me off. We had a screening last night in Hollywood that you could have attended. [Sighs irately] It’s a good ride, a satisfying movie experience that’s well crafted. I like the performances in it and what the director’s done. It’s less action than some of my fans might like. It’s the story of two guys who have a battle of wits which becomes a physical confrontation at the end of the movie, but it’s a thriller, not an action film.
Q: Is it hard for you to find good scripts?
A: It’s always been difficult to find good material that you have confidence in. I’ve always had ambitions to pursue different genres. Hopefully the average age of the moviegoer is going up a little as younger kids find satisfaction elsewhere. I think I can still do a love story at 63 but I probably shouldn’t do it with too young a costar.
Q: Why is it difficult to find good material when you’ve been atop a short list of bankable male actors for almost 30 years now?
A: It’s a matter of taste, a matter of judgment. Maybe I’m being overly critical. I’m looking for something that engages me.
Q: Why didn’t you reprise your role as Jack Ryan in The Sum of All Fears?
A: I didn’t like the story. I didn’t think it was as strong as the films that we’d made. I thought there was a problem with the central theme of the movie, the blowing up of the Super Bowl and the killing of 300,000 people, which presents an insurmountable problem dramatically in a film. I also asked them to do some work on the script. And I thought the time had passed on that story, which was based on certain Cold War notions. So I said no, done, thank you very much.
Q: A fourth Indiana Jones movie is being talked up – the time hasn’t passed to do that, then?
A: I don’t think so, because it’s a movie about movies more than anything else. It’s about the fun you can have in a movie. So I think that still works. It’s looking very good to do another one. I haven’t felt this positive about it happening in a long time. But if it doesn’t happen in the next two years we should all forget it.
Q: The late Robert Mitchum told me that he turned down Patton, which he later thought was a big mistake until he saw the film and realized nobody could have done the role better than George C. Scott. What’s your philosophy about parts you’ve turned down?
A: I agree with Mitchum. Sometimes the role is not the right fit for you. Sometimes I might regret that I didn’t have the success of a film that I turned down, but if I thought I could do it I would.
Q: Why did you turn down the role of Eliott Ness in The Untouchables?
A: I just wasn’t responsive to the elements.
Q: Since you’ve become an A-list actor have you ever auditioned for a part and not gotten it?
A: I can’t remember.
Q: What about Schindler’s List?
A: I don’t remember auditioning for it. If I had been asked to do the film I would have. The role [of Schindler] interested me. It was a good film made by a quality director.
Q: What are your memories of playing Han Solo in Star Wars?
A: I had nothing to lose. I was a small part of a big machine. I wasn’t too worried about failing because I was pretty sure of what my part was in respect to the other characters and the theme. So I knew what I was there for.
Q: Of the movies you’ve made, which have been your favorites?
A: Peter Weir’s Witness and Roman Polanski’s Frantic. I liked his manic energy. My favorite performance is in The Mosquito Coast, another Peter Weir movie, but I haven’t seen it in a long time.
Q: What goes through your mind when you read a script?
A: First of all, I make a judgment of the ambition of the people who wrote the script. Did they reach their goal? Is it close enough if it’s not there? Do I have any ideas of how it could be made better and if so, do those ideas sit well with the other people involved? Do we incorporate those ideas in the script or do we do it on the fly? Does the design of the story work? Are the characters and the plot supporting each other? Who’s the director? Who’s attached?
Q: What don’t you want to hear from a director?
A: [Lowers voice dramatically] “Think back to when you were a child. Did you ever have feelings about your parents having another child?” I don’t want to talk about acting at this point. I want to talk about the story, how we can best serve the audience.
Q: Your longtime manager, Pat McQueeney, recently passed away. What impact did she have on your career?
A: Pat was a partner, a friend who always believed in me and one of those rare people who was liked and well respected throughout the industry. I miss her terribly.
Q: What film had the most impact on your life?
A: To Kill a Mockingbird. See that movie led me to want to do films that emotionally affect people.
Q: Were there any actors early on who could have made your life difficult, but turned out to be nice guys after all?
A: Gene Hackman [when they made The Conversation] and Gene Wilder [when they costarred in The Frisco Kid]. Both were encouraging, polite and willing to experiment with me to make our scenes together better.
Q: What advice would you give to an aspiring actor?
A: Don’t give up. It changes everything if you don’t give up. Remember, there’s no more competition for the good stuff than there is for the crap!
Q: How did you meet your current girlfriend, actress Calista Flockhart?
A: We met at an awards luncheon that we both attended alone. We chatted, had a drink and we’ve been together ever since.
Q: Any plans to get married?
A: I’m sorry, I suddenly can’t hear you.
Q: Is that because you’re now jumping up and down on your sofa proclaiming your love for her?
A: [Laughs] Most definitely, which is why I’m going to run out and buy a new sofa when we’re done here.
Q: Are we likely to ever find you out clubbing with Ms. Flockhart?
A: If you do then check my pulse, because it means I’ve died and gone to hell!
- By Craig Modderno
