Harrison Ford's Stock Still Rising

2002-07-14
NY Daily News
by Justine Elias

The word "hero" comes up often when one talks about Harrison Ford and his films — as in "quintessential American film hero" and "blockbuster action hero" and "thinking person's movie hero." The word echoes throughout the screenplay of "K-19: The Widowmaker," a new drama based on the ill-fated maiden voyage of a Cold War-era Soviet submarine crew.

But the actor is not comfortable with the term, particularly when it's applied to his role in "K-19."

"'Protagonist' is a better term," he says, nearly cringing as he avoids saying the H-word and, it seems, avoids putting himself ahead of others — even though he does get top billing over his co-star, Liam Neeson.

"This movie is about the strength that comes from many people contributing together to solve a problem, not about individualism," he adds. "Except that many men behaved heroically and sacrificed their lives and health and safety and careers to do so."

Because "K-19" is set behind the Iron Curtain in 1961, it's also about blame and coverup. Only in the early '90s, after the fall of communism, did the survivors of the voyage's nuclear catastrophe speak out about what happened.

Though "K-19" is in many ways a conventional action-thriller, the movie marks a transition for Ford: This is the first time, excepting Han Solo, that he has played a character who is not American. (Audiences and critics have been surprised by the film's trailer, which reveals Ford's go at a Russian accent.) His character, Vostrikov, is based on the K-19's skipper, but Ford says he "didn't consider the obligation of playing him as a real person."

And not since "The Mosquito Coast," when the actor played a disillusioned inventor who drags his family to South America, has Ford played someone who is not immediately sympathetic. It is Neeson's character, the K-19's original captain, demoted to executive officer when Vostrikov arrives, who is adored by the crew. Vostrikov, a taskmaster and party ideologue who doesn't invite conversation, is admired rather than liked.

The actor knows that, and relishes the chance to embody someone other than (here comes that word again) such iconic American heroes as Indiana Jones and Jack Ryan. "I thought it was important to allow the audience an understanding of what they might have some expectation for — and I say this ironically — a Harrison Ford movie. And go against it," he says. "I was very firm about wanting to use the accent, to show that this was not a character based on their expectations of what I would represent."

He was also keen to work with director Kathryn Bigelow, who has made some virtuoso action movies ("Near Dark" and "Point Break") and the ambitious, futuristic critical failure "Strange Days." "I had seen a movie of hers called 'The Weight of Water,' which is based on [an Anita Shreve] novel, and I thought it was a complex bit of storytelling," says Ford. (The horror-tinged thriller, made in 2000, will be released in November.) In turn, Bigelow's research into the Soviet submarine disaster, and her efforts to make it into a Hollywood movie, led her to Ford.

"I knew I was making a movie about Russians as human beings, showing their courage, their sympathy," says Bigelow. "Obviously, Harrison's work speaks for itself. He is a great actor. He also carries with him a familiarity that would help the audience understand this universe. He brings fortitude and strength."

Where previous Cold War movies had divided the world into "us" and "them," Bigelow says "K-19" does not. "At the time, the Soviets were our enemy. Yet when you cast familiar actors, you have to ask what 'us' and 'them' mean. There is only one 'us' — these events have an effect on all of us."

If Ford's character comes off as slightly remote, Bigelow recalls something she heard from the wife of the real sub captain. "She said that as much as they loved each other, she sensed that he was kind of a guest in his own home, marking time until he went to sea again, as though the sea was his other wife," she says.

Bigelow acknowledges that she was also hoping that Ford and Neeson, as fictional captain and executive officer in the film, would serve in those capacities on the set for the dozens of young actors who play the K-19's crew. "Many of them had never been in a movie before; many of them have no lines at all," says Bigelow. "Both Harrison and Liam were very selfless and accommodating with their guidance of the cast. They were aware of how much these younger guys looked up to them and were looking at them as they worked."

Christian Camargo, who plays the K-19's reactor technician, is a Juilliard-trained Broadway actor who has made independent and medium-budget films ("Plunkett & Macleane"). "This was a long shoot — almost six months — and it became clear that Harrison was involved in every aspect of the film," says Camargo. (In fact, Ford is an executive producer of "K-19.") "It is possible for a big star to focus only on his own role, to show up and to deliver his lines. That is not how he works. He is very quiet and observant, and he is as thorough and detailed as a character actor."

Camargo describes one scene, filmed in close quarters, in which Ford had to look slightly to the side of the camera — a position marked with a piece of tape. Usually an actor's position is also marked on the floor with tape, but in this case it couldn't be, since the mark would be seen, so Ford had to remember the spot.

"Before one take, someone thought that Harrison was out of position and they asked him to adjust," says Camargo. "But he said quietly, 'No, check your camera position.' And everyone, 20 people, thought they were right — and it turns out Harrison was right. The camera's mark had moved slightly. For him to be that aware, and that low-key about it, was very impressive to everyone. I'm sure he would say, with his dry sense of humor, that it's just luck that he is where he is today. But that isn't true, knowing how hard he works."

Ford's sense of humor isn't much in evidence as he discusses his exhaustive research into Cold War history. (He grew up near Chicago and recalls those years as "a scary time, when we all expected a nuclear attack.") Questions about his other vocations (carpentry and aviation) are brushed off, leading as they might to questions about his personal life, which, despite years of stardom, never appeared in the tabloids until his divorce from his second wife, screenwriter Melissa Mathison. Lately, he has been photographed with "Ally McBeal" star Calista Flockhart, 37.

What really gets under his skin, though, is an inadvertent reference to his age (he turned 60 yesterday, though he looks 50 at most). His next film will be a cop comedy directed by Phil Alden Robinson and co-starring Josh Hartnett, 25, who has been said to bear a certain resemblance to Ford, circa 1973's "American Graffiti."

The offending question? "Will your character and Hartnett's be related to each other?"

"Do you mean," Ford growls, "will he be playing my son?" For a moment, he looks utterly exasperated — even furious. Then he laughs in a relaxed, almost inviting way. "That generational question." As to the resemblance between himself and Hartnett, he says: "Oh, God. Let's hope he grows out of it."

But Ford can't get away from the generational question; the media keep reminding him. A recent Newsweek story asked where the next action heroes will come from and remarked, unkindly, that for the new Jack Ryan, Ben Affleck, "the ghost of Harrison Ford" looms large. (Wouldn't "shadow" be more apt? Anyway, one doubts whether Ford's Ryan would have allowed Baltimore to be nuked.)

The next Harrison Ford will be Harrison Ford: He will make a fourth Indiana Jones film, reprising a role he took on when he was 38.

The big screen routinely confronts him with his younger self. Four of his films — the first "Star Wars" trilogy and "Apocalypse Now" have been retooled and rereleased. In Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War epic, reissued last year with added footage as "Apocalpsye Now Redux," he played one of the Green Beret officers who sends Martin Sheen's Capt. Willard up the river to find Col. Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando.

"Watching 'Apocalypse Now,' I still feel that the work represents me," Ford says. "You do the best you can at that moment, at that age, with those resources. That's what Francis wanted when he cast me."

Of the mythology that has built up around the film, which took more than three years to complete, Ford can't or won't contribute much; he wasn't on the set very long. "Friends of mine were being hired, going to the Philippines and just disappearing, as though they were falling into a black hole," he says. "I told Walter Murch, who was editing the movie, that I didn't want that to happen to me. I kept asking for my part to be made smaller. I think I was supposed to be done in nine days and I was in and out of there in four. I am sure I was the only actor on the film who had that experience, of staying less time than
expected."

That should stand as the perfect metaphor for the career of an actor who thrives on understatement.

"K-19: The Widowmaker" opens Friday.

STAR FILE:

Born: July 13, 1942, in Chicago

Parents: Christopher, advertising executive, former actor (died 1999); Dorothy

Brother: Terence (b. 1945), actor

Education: Maine Township High School, Park Ridge, Ill.; Ripon College, Ripon, Wis. (English major; failed to complete degree)

Marriages: Mary Marquardt (1964-79); Melissa Mathison (married 1983; she filed for legal separation August 2001)

Children: Benjamin (b. 1967), Willard (b. 1969), Malcolm (b. 1987), Georgia (b. 1990)

Other job: Carpenter.

Acting debut: Summer stock, Williams Bay, Wis., 1963

Film debut: "Dead Heat on a Merry-Go Round" (1966)

TV debut: "The Intruders" (NBC, 1970)

Breakthrough film: "American Graffiti" (1973)

Key films: "Star Wars" (1977), "Apocalypse Now" (1979), "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980), "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981), "Blade Runner" (1982), "Return of the Jedi" (1983), "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (1984), "Witness" (1985, Oscar nomination as Best Actor), "The Mosquito Coast" (1986), "Working Girl" (1988), "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (1989), "Presumed Innocent" (1990), "Regarding Henry" (1991), "Patriot Games" (1992), "The Fugitive" (1993), "Clear and Present Danger" (1994), "The Devil's Own" (1997), "Air Force One" (1997), "Random Hearts" (1999), "What Lies Beneath" (2000), "K-19: The Widowmaker" (2002)

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