Everyman Harrison Ford a cynic at heart

So Han Solo and Indiana Jones' real-life alter ego is a cynic. Who would have guessed?

For example, here's Harrison Ford's take on the uproar over the National Security Agency's wiretapping activities:

"I think one knows that, by whatever means, the government has been involved in spying on its citizens from Hoover and McCarthy and well before that."

Ford certainly wasn't surprised, while doing research for his new techno-action-thriller "Firewall," by how much personal information is available to computer snoops.

"There is no such thing as privacy any longer," he says. "It just depends on how hard somebody wants to try."

As someone who has been under public scrutiny for nearly 30 years, since "Star Wars" thrust him into the limelight, the actor knows better than most what it's like to have strangers prying into his life. But he says the Internet has taken gossip and intrusion to a new level.

"There is no test of truth," Ford says. "You can put any kind of rubbish out there and most people will believe it."

In his new film, Ford plays a bank-security chief whose family is taken hostage to force him to transfer millions of dollars to a thief's offshore account. Absent from the big screen since 2003's "Hollywood Homicide," Ford says "Firewall" took about two years to develop.

"It was a completely different movie at the very, very beginning," says the actor, whose gray goatee and salt-and-pepper hair prove time hasn't stood still, though he looks far younger than his 63 years.

The film shows Ford in a mode familiar to fans of "Air Force One," "Patriot Games" and "Frantic" _ a normal guy forced to call upon all his mental and physical resources to protect those he loves.

Ford says he knows what audiences want from him.

"If I go out and do a Russian-submarine movie _ for instance _ I know that I'm gonna lose a certain percentage of my core audience that are not interested in that," he says. "And I think we have the history to prove it."

(Ford is philosophical about the fact that his 2002 Russian-sub drama, "K-19: The Widowmaker," earned back only about a third of its nearly $100 million cost, despite positive reviews.)

"I understand when I'm in the main vein and when I'm not," he says. "And I like to get out of the main vein every once in a while and work another plot of land.

"But that's my job. I'm not a character actor _ sometimes I wish I were a character actor. I fall into the category of leading man, and the leading man has a certain niche in American film. I try and bump up against the edges of it as much as possible, but basically I understand my utility. I know what I'm doing out there."

In a way, the Chicago native's icon status is ironic, considering the reasons he was drawn to acting.

"When I was in college I recognized that I was not suited for normal employment," he says. "All of my friends were setting out to work in offices for 25 years with the same people doing the same thing day in, day out. Didn't appeal to me. I was scared to death of doing that.

"I always felt like kind of an outsider, and in working in the theater I found a place to engage with people and wrestle with ideas and be part of the process of storytelling, and that was my key into the culture, I felt. And I felt a sense of community that I hadn't found in other places.

"I wasn't a team-sports person or a person that was interested in campus politics or anything. So that was my niche."

- By Betsy Pickle