His Presense is Clear

2002-07-14
Newsday
by Bruce Gilbert

With a career that spans more than 30 years, Harrison Ford is one of the most successful actors in the history of film
By Gene Seymour
Staff Writer

Coffee. Harrison Ford isn't a complicated man. More to the point, his complications seem fairly standard-issue when compared to those of us who aren't movie stars. Where's the coffee?

At this hour, on this day, in this Park Avenue suite, Harrison Ford seeks one thing, and it isn't a pencil, a cookbook, a compact disc of Bartok string quartets or a tear sheet of the day's Nasdaq highlights. A helicopter would be nice, but somewhat impractical given the environmental logistics.

Coffee! Now!

You have to understand. It's the middle of a very long day of fielding questions from entertainment writers about Russian accents, submarines, age and, yes, even helicopters. Who wouldn't need coffee to get through another two, three hours of that?

Topic A of these conversations is "K-19: The Widowmaker,” which opens nationwide Friday. "K-19” is the Harrison Ford movie of this summer, and it's among the more intriguing items on a very crowded and colorful resume.

Based on a true story, "K-19,” directed by Kathryn Bigelow ("Near Dark,” "Strange Days”), takes its name from Russia's first nuclear submarine armed with ballistic missiles. On its 1961 shakedown mission to the Arctic and the North Atlantic oceans, the submarine's shaky reactors shatter and leak deadly radiation, endangering its crew. The world itself is likewise in mortal danger, since the sub is in danger of blowing up in a thermo-

nuclear cloud, which, at that especially volatile point in the Cold War's history, could set off Armageddon.

Ford -- ah, here comes the coffee at last! -- plays Capt. Alexi Vostri-

kov, to whom the Soviet Union's military commissars have given command of K-19 over its regular captain, Polenin (Liam Neeson), who knows the ship's flaws all too well.

Vostrikov, a character assembled from real-life counterparts, gives Ford the opportunity to take his stoic, leathery, all-American good-guy patina literally and figuratively into foreign territory. As with the rest of the cast, Ford had to deal with the tricky issue of fashioning and sustaining a credible Russian accent throughout.

"Wasn't a problem,” Ford says, a mild smirk creasing his weathered features. "As far as I was concerned, they all had to talk like me.”

Vostrikov is also more complicated than most of the characters Ford has played. There's more than a little Captain Bligh in Vostrikov, who drives his crew and his submarine to their respective breaking points. His sense of duty to a government that had once imprisoned his father, a disgraced "hero of the Revolution,” is perplexing at best.

Vostrikov's martinet tendencies were among the things that attracted Ford to the role. "We wanted to keep him largely unsympathetic, knowing that would represent an emotional obstacle for the audience.” As one of "K-19's” executive producers, Ford was able to impose both his will and his point of view on the story's overall design. "We deliberately wanted to hold the audience at bay. We didn't bring the usual movie star-leading man expectations, since that can prop up the character and give the license to take a lot of things for granted. This character doesn't allow for that. And that's what I found fascinating.”

It sounds, in any event, like a long way from Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Still, "K-19” is hardly the first movie in which Ford, who celebrated his 60th birthday Saturday, has taken his heroic persona into complex, morally conflicted terrain. One thinks of the adulterous lawyer in 1990's "Presumed Innocent,” or even the the homicidal husband in 2000's "What Lies Beneath.” One could even go as far back as 1982's "Blade Runner” and his performance as the grimy robot hunter who begins to doubt his own humanity. When Ford really stretches himself, as in 1991's "Regarding Henry,” in which he played a Manhattan lawyer-shark made more human following a head injury, the actor is given, at best, pats on the back for trying. But generally, he's advised by critics and others to stay within his range.

The last person to ask about how these and other roles sort themselves out is Ford, who doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about things like "the body of work.”

"I never quite know how to place or any other role in perspective of the other things I've done,” Ford says. "It's something I just don't do ... I don't think I've ever seen any of my films all the way through. I remember the experience, or working on certain projects, some more than others. Sometimes I'll just accidentally catch something on TV and I'll feel pleased that it's there. Just recently I saw a few moments of "Blade Runner,” which I'd never liked in its first version because I hated the voice-over narration. But with this director's cut, I feel a lot better about it than I once did.

"But as far as seeing ‘the work' as a whole ... well, to be honest, whenever I get asked to remember all the movies I did, I have to sit down and read a book about me to refresh my memory.”

Don't even think about blaming such lapses on what Ford wryly refers to as "the ‘O' word.” Old? Ford's chiseled features yield only the faintest hints of his four-score years, while his lean frame yields none whatsoever. Time apparently is an illusion -- or at least an unsubstantiated rumor -- to Ford's metabolism. He looks as if he could go on forever bringing people to the multiplexes on the strength of his good name.

That name can now summon huge up- front money. In addition to a $25-million salary for "K-19,” Ford is also assured of 20 percent of the box-

office gross. The Internet Movie Database juxtaposes such eye-popping figures with the $500 a week Ford received for being part of the ensemble cast of "American Graffiti” back in 1973.

Though he'll never be at ease with his stardom, Ford has for years been financially and professionally secure enough that he's taken on less conventional projects, such as "K-19.” He turned down the drug-czar role in "Traffic” (2000) that went to Michael Douglas, as well as the Russell Crowe role in "Proof of Life”(2000) and the Mel Gibson part in "The Patriot” (1998).

Ford's last action-hero vehicle was 1997's "Air Force One,” in which he played a U.S. president battling terrorists who take over his plane. He's opted since for more romantic roles in such mood-inflected stories as 1999's "Random Hearts.”

"Sometimes you need a rest,” Ford says. "And the older you get, the less inclined you are to act as if you're still 30 and can throw your body around.”

How, then, to account for Ford's decision to step back into the action maelstrom by dusting off the Indiana Jones role he made into a cinematic icon? He's signed on to pick up, more or less, where 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” left off, with director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas along for the return trip. This new film, which would be the fourth in the rip-snorting series that began in 1981 with "Raiders of the Lost Ark” and continued with 1984's "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and "Crusade,” is scheduled for a 2005 release.

Didn't Ford once say he'd never pick up Indy's bullwhip, sidearm and battered fedora again? He doesn't remember making it permanent, but, yes, he did say he needed a break from the role. He now figures he's taken a long enough break. But -- how to put this delicately? -- maybe the break was too long? Did we mention that Ford just turned 60?

He shrugs. "You can bring up the ‘O' word,” he says. "Well, what's too old any more when you have Jack Palance doing one-armed push-ups? Anybody want to ask Regis Philbin if he's too old? I wouldn't. It's all a reflection of life.

"What astonishes me,” he says, "is that people can't imagine Indiana Jones aging at all. Why expect any character to be frozen in time? The appeal [of Indiana Jones] isn't his youth but his imagination, his resourcefulness ... His physicality is a big part of it, especially in the way he gets out of tight situations. But it's not all hitting people and falling from high places. My ambition in action is to have the audience look straight in the face of a character and not at the back of a capable stuntman's head. I hope to continue to do that, no matter how old I get.

"Besides, the chance to work with Steven and George again is certainly something I look forward to. If we can come up with the right story, great.”

He says he also enjoyed working with Bigelow ("very well-prepared, intensely involved”). Given Ford's reputation for grousing during projects he found wanting, one can't help asking whether he finds it important to have people that he likes working with him.

"No ... I mean, it's nice, but it's not critical. To be a little glib, it's more important that they like you. If they've taken you on, it's because they think you have the capability to flesh out their vision. You bring what's needed, then that makes things easier all around, even if you don't always agree or get along on everything. And if I have this -- what'd you call it? -- reputation for speaking my mind, it's only because I'm there to do the job the best way I can.”

What would he be doing today if he weren't doing this interview? What's a day off like for a man who likes to work as much as Ford does?

"Depends on where I am and who I'm with,” he says. "I could be back home in Wyoming (he has a ranch in Jackson Hole), visiting my kids in Los Angeles or New York. Two of my kids live in L.A., one of them has a restaurant.” (He has four children, two from each of his marriages. He's recently divorced from screenwriter Melissa Matthison. Lately, he's been seen in Manhattan with actress Calista Flockhart.) And helicopters? "Yeah, I've got a couple I could be flying around now if they were nearby. I still fly other planes... ”

So Harrison Ford doesn't take time to goof off? Sleep late? Veg out?

"Nah. I've never been like that. I have to have something to do. I've gone a year without doing a movie, but that's about as far as I can go.”

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