Ford lightens up (a little)

Boston Globe Online
By Hugh Hart
June 8th, 2003

In a new comedy, the action hero playfully tweaks his stoic image, but he still takes his fun very seriously

''Harrison's in a good mood today,'' says Revolution Studios boss Joe Roth. This is comforting news since Roth, who worked with Harrison Ford on ''Air Force One,'' is now backing his new film, ''Hollywood Homicide.'' He then adds, ''He suffers fools badly.''

A few minutes later Ford himself, dressed in a blue suit and a shirt buttoned to the top, quietly takes a chair and proceeds to demonstrate that he's one serious guy, even when talking about slapstick.

After all, ''Hollywood Homicide'' offers the taciturn action hero in rare full-shtick mode. He chomps on a doughnut midway through a love scene with Lena Olin. He whips down the street on a pink girl's bicycle in hot pursuit of a bunch of gangsters. And, in a squad car, he

laconically recites Stella's lines from ''A Streetcar Named Desire.'' It's not the in-control persona moviegoers associate with Ford, which is precisely why the star decided to take the role of Joe Gavilan, a gruff LA detective who moonlights as a real estate agent. At one point Ford's character tries to unload a white elephant mansion on a rap star (Master P) midway through an interrogation.

''I really like this kind of comedy compared to the romantic comedies I normally do, where I'm the straight man, which are never really that funny anyway,'' Ford murmurs.

Josh Hartnett plays Ford's rookie partner, an aspiring actor who teaches yoga in his spare time. Preoccupied with their second jobs, the pair try to solve a string of murders related to a hip-hop turf war. Although the film has all the markings of a buddy film, Ford made no effort to bond with his young costar. ''These two characters are not buddies,'' Ford says. ''They're guys who work together, who don't don't understand each other at all. I thought, that pretty much was reflected in our relationship, and I didn't try to disturb it.''

Hartnett confirms that Ford seemed to enjoy keeping him on edge during shooting. ''Over the course of the film we had our ups and downs,'' says Hartnett. ''Harrison has this dry sense of humor, and he's very sarcastic. He's an intimidating guy.''

Following a somewhat awkward first meeting between the two at a Los Angeles deli, which left the awestruck Hartnett, 24, nearly speechless, production on the film began late last fall on the streets in and around Hollywood. ''Harrison tested me to the limit, so I hated him for a while,'' recalls Hartnett.

''He gave me a lot of [expletive] about the choices that I made. `That's not a cop haircut.' Things like that. Other than Brad Pitt in `The Devil's Own,' I think I'm really only the second young guy he's worked with in his career, so when I kind of came into his territory, that's when he started to throw his elbows out. He might be the nicest guy in the entire world to everybody else.''

The way Ford sees it, whatever tension existed only helped make the ''Hollywood Homicide'' characters more believable. ''I didn't actively initiate any trouble,'' he says, ''but neither did I dress his wounds. I just leave it lay like Jesus flung it. These two guys are not buddies. I did nothing to disturb that. Or Josh's discomfort. Or his questioning of whether or not I thought he was adequate.''

Director Ron Shelton, who cowrote the script with former homicide investigator Robert Souza, is no slouch at directing alpha males. He worked with Tim Robbins and Kevin Costner (''Bull Durham''), Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes (''White Men Can't Jump''), Paul Newman (''Blaze''), Tommy Lee Jones (''Cobb''), and Kurt Russell (''Dark Blue.'')

''Harrison's a big dog,'' acknowledges Shelton, who nonetheless found Ford more than ready to get goofy. ''Usually, Harrison is so stoic, he's almost like a cowboy actor in an age where we don't make westerns. But occasionally there's also been a twinkle in his eye. I wondered, How much is behind that twinkle? I said to him, `Harrison, what about the part of you that, with a couple of drinks and a cigar, is a different guy?' ''

Shelton says Ford saw the comic possibilities right away. ''Have you ever seen Josh Hartnett doing Brando? Have you ever seen Harrison Ford sell a house to a rap star? That's the heart of the movie.

''If you look at Indiana Jones, there's this light touch he has, and one of the wonderful charms of those films is that he doesn't take it too seriously.''

Speaking of ''Indiana Jones,'' Ford confirms there's going to be more to come. Talk has been circulating for months about the possibility of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg teaming for a fourth adventure. ''It's a lock,'' Ford says. ''We're going to do it, late summer 2004. I'm looking forward to it.'' But before he reprises Jones, Ford seems in his low-key fashion to savor the chance to work subversive variations on the All-American hero theme from time to time. ''I know what people think [about me], and that's why it's so fun to turn it around on them,'' he says.

''That's also what made `What Lies Beneath' work,'' he adds, referring to one of his rare villain roles. ''You have the option to either deliver on the audience's expectations or to twist 'em up a bit.''

Ford has demonstrated a firm grasp of just what those expectations are. Since he introduced his iconic characters Han Solo (in 1977's ''Star Wars'') and Indiana Jones (in 1981's ''Raiders of the Lost Ark''), his films have made more than $5 billion in worldwide box office. Despite a few duds, including recent fizzles ''Random Hearts'' and ''K-19: The Widowmaker,'' he remains atop the leading-man A-list, commanding at least $20 million per picture.

Not bad for a so-so high school student from Chicago who had one season of Wisconsin summer stock under his belt when he moved West 30 years ago to pursue a movie career. ''I've never been keen on acting classes,'' Ford explains. ''That never got to the heart of the matter, for me. Over the years, I learned by doing and by observing how other people worked. I figured out for myself that acting was separate from [and came after] the story work. [First] I had to develop faith in the story.'' Ford acquired enormous clout with his string of Steven Spielberg- and George Lucas-helmed action pictures, and he wasn't shy about exercising it.

''Once I began to have a degree of influence, I wanted to test the story, to ask hard questions. What is different about the character we see in this scene from the character we saw two scenes before? I started to work with people who could endure this process. Some of them were less interested in doing this than others.''

For those filmmakers who simply wanted an actor to read the lines, Ford says his response has generally been, '' `Well then, go ahead and start without me.' That doesn't float my boat.''

Given Ford's usual insistence on a tautly constructed story line, it was all the more surprising when he signed up for ''Hollywood Homicide'' before the screenplay was even finished.

''There was no script,'' Ford says, ''but there was a really strong concept and a willingness to be collaborative as the script was developed, so I took a shot.

''Ron Shelton is a good observer of men and the world they live in, which is not necessarily the natural world,'' he adds with a chuckle. ''Ron knows what the pressures are, and pressure is the fount of all comic opportunity.''

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