Deconstructing Harris (Entertainment Weekly, 2003-10-30)

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Deconstructing Harris

Ed Harris takes a look back at his career. Everything from bringing an astronaut down to earth, a dying artist to life, and a psycho ex-husband to the brink by Dave Karger

MISTER ED Harris' career was built on strong supporting roles, but he's okay with that

Ed Harris knows that a little of him can go a long way. Earlier this year he earned an Oscar nomination for just a few minutes' work as AIDS-stricken poet Richard Brown in ''The Hours.'' Now he's equally memorable -- and utterly frightening -- in five scenes of ''The Human Stain,'' playing Lester Farley, the psychopathic Vietnam veteran who torments his already-troubled ex-wife (Nicole Kidman). ''I only know one actor that I would say, 'Here are five scenes, and you have to make a whole character,''' says ''Human Stain'' director Robert Benton. ''And that's Ed Harris.'' Over two decades of film work, Harris has had to make his mark largely through smaller roles -- three of his four Oscar nods have come in the supporting category -- and the actor understands precisely why. ''It's the way the business is run,'' he says plainly. ''I've never been the lead guy in any film that's made any money.'' (Here's an exception: ''Radio,'' the feel-good football drama in which he stars, grossed $13.3 million in its opening weekend.)

Those who've worked with Harris say he's as captivating off screen as he is on. ''We did a table read for 'A Beautiful Mind,' and he was sitting opposite me, and he took his shoes off under the table, and I watched,'' says Jennifer Connelly, who also costarred with Harris in ''Pollock.'' ''I thought, Now that is the definition of a charismatic person. He takes his freaking shoes off and I'm watching!'' Looking out over the Pacific from his backyard in Malibu, Harris, 52, reminisces about some of the roles that have kept us fixated.

KNIGHTRIDERS (1981)
Harris' first lead role came as the hog-riding King Billy in George A. Romero's cult riff on the legend of Camelot. ''Yeah, King Arthur on motorcycles. It sounded totally bizarre to me. But I had always been a major Camelot fan; I played King Arthur in a production in Oklahoma City when I was first starting out.''

THE RIGHT STUFF (1983)
Harris' portrayal of astronaut (and future politician) John Glenn hit theaters just as Glenn was campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination. ''They had my picture on the cover of Newsweek saying 'Can a Movie Make a President?' or something, which really was not good for the movie because it made it seem like it was some political thing. I know the box office was disappointing at the time, but it's certainly held up over the years. I just went to a 20th-anniversary screening. It was a little excruciating watching it. I think I'm a much better actor than I was then. Some of the scenes, I was squirming a little bit.''

THE ABYSS (1989)
A three-month shoot became seven on James Cameron's underwater alien epic, which featured an incongruous (and now infamous) happy ending. It didn't help matters when the cameraman ran out of film during one intense scene. ''I was slapping Mary Elizabeth [Mastrantonio] when she's going into hypothermia and trying to wake her up. I'm screaming at her and literally slapping her face. And I see the light go out on the camera. And nobody says 'Cut.' So I said, 'You guys just ran out of film, didn't you?' Mary Elizabeth just got up and said, 'We are not animals!' and walked off the set for a few hours until she calmed down. When I saw the film the first time, and that tie-dyed-looking thing comes up out of the water, I was just furious, because we had really worked our asses off, and the film was really good up to that point. On the DVD there's a different ending, which, whether you like it or not, at least makes more sense.''

MILK MONEY (1994)
Harris' biggest dud was this ''Pretty Woman'' knockoff starring Melanie Griffith as a hooker hired by a kid to date his widowed dad. ''Actually, some people really enjoy that. There are kids who have watched that thing over and over again. But it's a little sexist and kind of stupid.''

APOLLO 13 (1995)

His commanding turn as flattopped Mission Control leader Gene Kranz earned Harris his first Oscar nomination. ''I really got into what my job was and read a lot and studied a lot of charts and diagrams. The nomination thing has so much to do with the profile of the film. It doesn't mean that suddenly your work is any better than it used to be, but that it's in a film that people are paying attention to.''

THE ROCK (1996)
Michael Bay's bombastic Alcatraz thriller featured Harris as monologue-happy Brig. Gen. Francis X. Hummel. ''Some of the dialogue just seemed a little unreal to me, a little tough to make work with some integrity. The speech about Jefferson and Washington and whatever that was, I had to get some adrenaline flowing to get the words out of my mouth. I remember one time there was a phone nearby and I took the receiver and pounded it down a couple times. Then Michael would bring it over to me between every take: 'Go ahead and slam it a few times, Ed!'''

THE TRUMAN SHOW (1998)
When Peter Weir asked Harris to replace Dennis Hopper as Christof, the mastermind behind the Jim Carrey Uber-reality program, Harris, who'd earn another Oscar nomination for the role, initially suggested he wear a prosthetic hump. ''I literally had, like, a day or two to create this character. I was a little intimidated by it. The guy is basically God, you know? I was thinking, What would make this guy want to create this world? So I had this idea of this disfigured guy. Peter didn't feel that was necessary. We tried it, though. We actually had a pad for me.''

POLLOCK (2000)
(Pictured) Harris earned his only Best Actor nod for his labor of love, which he developed for almost a decade and, after offering the project to Victor Nunez, Peter Weir, and Agnieszka Holland, directed himself. ''I was going to codirect it with Charles Haid, who did [TNT's] 'Riders of the Purple Sage.' Charlie had a lot of good ideas, but they weren't my ideas, and that's when I realized, Hey, I don't want to share this with anybody. I put a lot of money into it because I was responsible for the overages. I was not surprised that I was nominated, to tell you the truth. I just had a feeling.''

THE HOURS (2002)
Just two scenes opposite Meryl Streep in Stephen Daldry's adaptation of the Michael Cunningham novel earned Harris his fourth Oscar recognition. ''I was a little bit frightened by it, playing a gay man. I had found this really fey voice, and I called up Stephen in this voice saying 'I think I've found this character.' He says, 'No, Ed. That's not what I want you to do here.' Then I just started thinking about it more in human terms as opposed to outer manifestations. I think if I did it now, I'd do a better job.''

RADIO (2003)
The true-life crowd-pleaser features Harris as a high school football coach who mentors a mentally challenged African-American man (Cuba Gooding Jr.) in racially divided South Carolina. ''My fear is that it would be a little bit over-the-top, a little too sentimental. And the danger in terms of the race thing is that it becomes a Stepin Fetchit kind of thing. Which I don't think it does. Plus, I was, like, the main guy in the movie, which was fun. If it succeeds, they'll probably say, 'Oh, that's because Cuba was in it.' Which is fine with me. Whatever.''