For Ed Harris, `The Way Back` was a long, welcome road
Posted 2011. 1. 22. 15:19"If you're lost in the woods, don't call me,"Harris says. "I like being in nature, but I'm not a survivalist. I'dprobably eat some poisonous plant and be dead in a day. I was a BoyScout, but I only got five merit badges. I can light a fire — with amatch."
It's quite a turn from his latest performance in The Way Back, a film about a handful of men who escape from a Soviet labor camp in 1940 and walk 4,000 miles to India.
Harris, 60, plays an American who immigrated to Russiaduring the Depression, hoping to find work. "These jobs were advertisedin U.S. newspapers," he says, "and thousands of Americans went there.When they arrived, the Russians would take their passports and requirethem to become Soviet citizens in order to be employed. When the purgesstarted, they were stuck." Seven thousand Americans are said to havedisappeared in the gulags.
The movie, in theaters now, was inspired by The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom,written by Slavomir Rawicz, a Polish cavalry officer who was capturedby the Soviets and sent to a Siberian camp. When the officer, played byJim Sturgess, escapes, a raggedy group of prisoners, including Harris' Mr. Smith, go with him.
Not surprisingly, filming the trek through thefrozen forests of Siberia, vast plains of Mongolia, the Gobi Desert andthe Himalayas was challenging. But Harris didn't mind.
"It was almost like the more difficult it was,the better it was," says Harris, a four-time Academy Award nominee."You felt like you were getting closer to the reality of what thesepeople had gone through."
Sitting in the comfort of a Los Angeles hotel —ironically enough, the Luxe — Harris is worlds away from Bulgaria,Morocco and India, where the film was shot. But he hasn't left theexperience behind him.
"I got as lean as I could, and I've stayed kindof lean," he says, explaining his thin physique. Toward the end of thefilm, Mr. Smith appears to be wasting away.
"My most miserable day was when I wasintestinally in trouble, big time," Harris says. "I hadn't been able tokeep any food or liquids in my body for 24 hours, and I had no energy.I could hardly lift a finger, and I had to drag this huge travois (amakeshift cart) up a huge mountain of sand with Sturgess."
During his 35-year film career, Harris has movedeasily between action films and intimate dramas. He gained fame in 1983playing astronaut John Glenn in The Right Stuffand has worked steadily since; he now has six more films ready forrelease. "It's not so much about quantity as it is about quality,"Harris says. "I'm always seeking quality. I try to find things thathave something that will interest me."
That includes films that carryless-than-promising box-office draw. "Some are independent films thatno one will see," Harris concedes.
In addition to choosing films based on content,Harris also likes to help aspiring filmmakers. He agreed to make thecoming-of-age story Touching Home because first-timedirectors/writers Logan and Noah Miller "seemed really sincere andpassionate about what they were doing," he says. "The film has alreadybeen released sporadically, but it's going to be promoted in Walmart stores. I'm proud of the work I did in that."
Harris met his wife, actress Amy Madigan, nearly 30 years ago while they were both filming Places in the Heart. They were married in 1983 and have worked together on six films, including 2007's Gone Baby Gone, plus three of his current films: Once Fallen, That's What I Am and What's Wrong With Virginia?
"I love working with Amy," Harris says. "I'dlove to find something to direct her in." (Madigan played PeggyGuggenheim in Harris' directorial debut, Pollock.)
Meanwhile, Harris is developing two projects in which he will be both director and actor. "One is set during the Spanish Civil War,"he says. "The other is about a high-wire walker who was famous in Parisin the 1920s. It's a contemporary story. He comes back home to Texas.I've been working on a wire. It's just 2 feet off the ground. It'sgreat for balance and focus."
Harris' other focus is his 17-year-old daughter, Lily, who has acting on the brain.
"She used to ride horses competitively," he says. "But recently she played Heidi in The Heidi Chronicles atschool. I'm so proud of her. It was so intense watching her doing whatI do and knowing what it takes to do it. I'm slightly in awe."