Harrison Ford 'happy to play bad guy'

In his new action thriller Firewall, Hollywood actor Harrison Ford plays an ordinary man forced to perform extraordinary deeds to rescue his kidnapped family.

It's familiar territory for the 63-year-old sex symbol, who has a string of "man under pressure" film credits on his resume.

But Ford, in Australia this week for the first time in more than a decade, says he doesn't know how he'd react if his own family were ever threatened.

"I cannot imagine what I might do," said the soft-spoken veteran actor, who is engaged to former Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart. The pair live with Flockhart's adopted five-year-old son Liam.

"I don't think anybody knows what they're capable of under those circumstances," he told reporters.

Apart from his demented husband role in the supernatural thriller What Lies Beneath, Ford rarely plays the villain.

But he insists this is not by design.

"I'd be happy to play a bad guy if I found an interesting script with an interesting role," Ford said.

"There's no good guy without the bad guy, as I think this film (Firewall) aptly demonstrates," he said.

He'd also like to extend himself in other ways.

"I love comedy, I'd love to do comedy, (but) again it's a question of what comes across my desk at any given time. I'm due for a good one, but I don't think good comedy scripts are even as easy to find as dramas," he said.

Ford has three new films on the horizon, including sci-fi thriller Godspeed, political thriller Manhunt and the next eagerly-awaited instalment in the Indiana Jones franchise, which Ford expected to start production on "sooner than later".

"There's a script that there's a degree of agreement on and it's still in process but I am hoping that it will be pretty soon," he said.

"It's getting there, it's a great script and it can only get better.

"It's a movie that's fun to make, (and) I like working with Steven (Spielberg)."

Beyond Indiana Jones, Ford said he has "three or four" projects in development which will take up the next five to six years, by which time he'll be pushing 70.

Asked whether he thinks any of his future roles will ever capture audience imaginations and hearts like Indiana Jones or the iconic Hans Solo from the Stars Wars films, Ford replied: "Probably not, no."

Copyright © 2006 AAP

- By Adam Gartrell