Harrison Ford: Still Sane After All These Years

Q: We know the answer to that.

A: [Laughs] Yes. Well. I think this is a family picture, which I haven't done for a while. There's no swearing, no ill treatment of women, no gratuitous sex or violence. I think it could be a film that women make their men go see. But once there, men will be engaged by it.

Q: In general, the films you' ve made tend to avoid gruesome violence and gratuitous this or that.

A: Gratuitous effects take up the space and the energy and the emotion that could be used for really important moments. If you blow people out of their seats with bullshit every 30 seconds, when something comes along you want them to care about they' re already numb. The adrenaline's gone.

Q: You don't seem like someone who' d inspect scripts for their political correctness.

A: It's just a matter of taste. And a matter of respect for the audience as well. I have the choice of what story I want to help tell, and my taste is for stories that support positive relation-ships between people and that don' t co-opt important issues and then provide glib answers. I think people feel the difference between bullshit and reality. Bullshit deflects them emotionally, and real relationships engage them.

Q: Have you ever sat through one of your own movies with a real audience?

A: Only in test screenings. I don' t think. I've ever seen a film of mine after that period. Once it's all finished, once we've had the last arguments about the cuts and everybody's had their say, that' s the last time I see that movie unless it shows up on TV and I watch a few minutes. It' s over. I' m on to something else.

Q: Many people cite the scene where you and Kelly McGillis dance in the barn in Witness as one of the most romantic, erotic scenes in the movies. I talked to Peter Weir about how he directed the scene and he said that with romantic scenes you always go back to Alfred Hitchcock because nobody did it better. Do you agree with him on that?

A: I haven' t a clue what he' s talking about. The way I remember it, we needed them to have a moment alone. Not a lot of it was scripted. We just set up the situation and lightly rehearsed it and shot it. There was not a lot of thinking about it. It was clear that it was about anticipation and violating the rules. Peter asked for a suggestion for the music and I picked it. It was Otis Redding, wasn't it? No. It was Sam Cooke. Sam Cooke. Go back to Hitchcock? Go back to Sam Cooke if you want romance. That' s where I' d go. I don' t know about Hitchcock. To me he never created a believable human relationship. I find his films incredibly stilted.

Q: I think Weir was talking about the whole choreography of erotic scenes.

A: Maybe what he' s talking about is that romance is not about coupling. It' s about attenuating the moment before it happens, and it never has to happen. I think Barbra Streisand said about Sydney Pollack that he' s the master of foreplay. That in his films people rarely end up doing it, because by that time all the pleasure and anticipation and the interest are gone, except for the people who are getting to do it. It' s much more fun to watch the tension and anticipation than it is to watch people shut up.

Q: Do you think sexuality, as it exists in movies, leans more egregiously toward the vulgar or toward the boring?

A: Sometimes it gets boring first, and then it gets vulgar. Sometimes it's vulgar to start out with and then that' s boring. It' s certainly some combination of those two characteristics.

Q: I know that you dislike the culture of celebrity and have tried not to encourage it with respect to yourself. How well do you think you've succeeded?

A: To the extent I've succeeded, it' s been partly the result of disposition and partly the result of luck. But it has affected me enormously in ways that I don' t express. I' m sometimes quite desperate about it. About not having privacy, about not having the opportunity to be anonymous. Giving that up is giving up the most important thing. You' d better get something for it. What I've gotten is considerable--I cannot complain. I got to the point where it wasn't fun and I quickly passed through--I realized it was of very little interest to anyone else whether I was having a good time or not, so I might as well have a good time and not dwell on what was a minor inconvenience in a life full of privilege and opportunity.

Q: Do you think it's better for stars to let people know less attractive things about them as a way of demys tification, or to work hard to keep their image as positive as possible?

A: I don' t know. I always try to be on my best behavior because it's just the way you treat guests. Also, I think it's unseemly to air your problems and dirty laundry in public. I don' t feel any obligation or need to make myself seem interesting. I've always said that the most interesting thing about me is the job I do. I myself have very little interest in people' s personal lives. I have a great deal of interest in what they do. I don't think people go to the movies to see me because I' m a fascinating person. They go because I have a history of appearing more often than not in good movies. I'd just as soon people not know very much about me, because I want to deliver who I am through characters who are made of pieces of what I am, in varying pro-portions depending on the character.

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