The Tamesis
They thrive all day long. We replay this runaway golf cart scene over and over again, zipping from the set where he’s acting to the trailer where he’s talking, and back again. Sometimes he would give me his PowerBook to feed, and sometimes he would give me corn chowder or something that damn spilled. Shooting is the craziest profession because it’s endlessly repetitive: 28 seconds of intense activity, followed by hours of yawning and flipping through last week’s pages. type. He was carrying a two-way radio and suddenly interrupted us loudly: “Cowboy!” said a husky female voice. “Cowboy!” Harrison Ford picked it up and roared, “Cowboy!” Back away. She said, “Five minutes warning!” and he said, “Let’s go,” and threw me back in the golf cart and started running back to the set. (Don’t laugh! That’s so cool!)
Harrison Ford is the star of the century and the only actor to have appeared in more than one of the top-grossing movies of all time (Han Solo and Indiana Jones were his Gary Cooper/Jimmy Stewart/John Wayne roles, with a bit of Bogart thrown in.) I also love his Cary Grant roles: witness and working girl. He’s been having a slightly laid-back period lately (which no one I know likes About Henry A lot – or Sabrina Not at all), but 1997 seemed to be a good year for him. Star Wars Back. Across the world, an entire generation of little girls fell in love with Han Solo, even though they knew that if one day they could somehow tell him “I love you!”, that great day would come. All he says is: “I know.” They’re 20 years older now, but they still flock to theaters to relive it Star Warswith all its expensive new digital re-enhancements and all its old magic.
This year we will also see the devil’s ownFord and Brad Pitt spent a long time filming, and director Alan J. Pakula spent a long time editing (released later this month), air force oneThe set I’m on is set to be released this summer. He said he enjoyed alternating between roles “rolling in the mud” and “working in suits.” Still, it’s easy for Harrison Ford, now in his 50s, to wallow in the mud in a suit and tie. I wondered if he was still doing his own stunts and he was furious. “I never do stunts,” he said lowly. “Stuntmen do stunts. I do acting. Hard physical acting, doing the best you can before it becomes a stunt. I don’t do my own stunts. I do my own acting. I do my own hair.”
His trailer smelled like air freshener, like a cheap cab. He spent every available moment telling me things I already knew, like how he chose the script (“the story”) and how he played his characters (“to help tell the story.”). He does not expand. He doesn’t cook. He didn’t explain why the devil’s own (Brad Pitt the puppy plays an IRA agent on the run from Belfast, Harrison Ford the old lion plays the New York Irish cop who befriends him) It’s hard to shoot. Movies about the IRA struggle to fit into the simple universal theme of “good guys win, bad guys lose.” Their moral center is sly and ambiguous: When a body falls to the floor, is this heroism or terrorism? Rumors abounded of rewrites, walkouts, bruised egos and tantrums on set. (people from air force one Keep asking: “Do you know all the dirt on Devil’s Own?” Me: “No. What’s the dirt on Devil’s Own?” Bright Hollywood laugh: “Ha! Ha! You won’t get that from me!”) I didn’t get that from Ford either. He said in a slow, rumbling, husky voice that he was very interested in working with Brad. He thought it would be a fun and dynamic combination. The story piqued his interest. “But I thought, if I was going to play this character, I had to go through a certain transition.” He said, “We, uh, had some delays in writing the script. Well. They’ve worked it out. Mid-stream.” He added, somewhat obliquely, “Most movies take 50 days to shoot. Fifty working days. This one we’re shooting here is going to take 40 days to shoot.” the devil’s own It took one…a hundred…days to shoot. “So is this a boring process? Wry smile: “Your words. “So, is Brad Pitt a good guy or a bad guy? He smiled savagely: “I think you’d better ask Brad this question. “After a brief pause, when I was thinking about the difference between actor and character, I said, “I mean, in a movie. Harrison Ford laughed, a real laugh, his eyes sparkling. But then he got back smoothly (and in detail) to the only things he was prepared to discuss: characters, motivations, storylines.
