On January 13th, Jacob Burns held its eighth annual Silver Screen Fundraiser and
treated attendees to a 90 minute Q & A with actor Ed Harris. Presenting
clips from a career that begin in 1978," New York Times Film Critic, Janet
Maslin directed a discourse into the personal and professional life of one of
America's finest actors.
Significantly, the packed theater learned that a character only emerges from
a screenplay after Mr. Harris does some important paper work of his own. The
actor creates his own back story for the character and jots down the ideas as
they come along. By filming, the image of the character is clear to the point
where, he says, "They become very real," and the on screen creation follows more
readily.
He and the audience were left in agreement upon viewing a scene from the
movie, "Just Cause," in which he portrays a serial killer. "Looks even weirder
from this angle," he said from onstage, and that provided a segue into some of
Mr. Harris's documented confrontations with paparazzi.
Bad enough when they find him a solo act, but infringing upon a family
situation is not something he takes lightly. With the clicks catching him and
his daughter eating lunch one day, he said he returned a look that should have
come across in a lot less than a thousand words.
"So you can be scary even when you're not working," interjected Ms. Maslin
but it was Mr. Harris's reaction to the message that the photographer missed
that got the last laugh. "I threw my hot dog at him," he said, and since his
daughter approved at the time, vindication came across in the audience's
reaction.
A down to earth decency also emerged as his recent involvement in an
independent film unraveled before the audience. "Touching Home" is a true story
of the difficult and heart-warming relationship between an alcoholic father and
his two sons.
Written upon the father's death by his two sons, Mr. Harris was held hostage
to the story by more than just the compelling nature of the screenplay. "They
wouldn't let me say no," he says.
In the audience, Logan and Noah Miller rose to tell their side of the story.
"All the experts tried to talk us out of it, said Logan Miller somewhat
inaudibly. On his own toes, Mr. Harris rose to his feet and flipped the
microphone 10 rows deep into the ready hands of Logan.
"We're the independent filmmakers and we're here to talk to Mr. Harris," he
conveyed how they bypassed security at a film festival to ensnare the actor.
Persuaded, Mr. Harris would read the script and was later impressed but pleaded
complete unavailability to them.
Nonetheless, Mr. Harris agreed to a meeting in which he relented to the
brothers' sincerity and persistence. "I'll give you two weeks," he said he told
them and the Miller's jumped on it.
As is, the film is scheduled to be released after the Harper Collins book
they have written about the making of the film is published.
Displaying consistency, it seemed not to matter that they knew nothing of how
to write a book, but the Miller brothers share a similarity that compares to the
actor's beginnings. Mostly a jock growing up, Mr. Harris' late introduction into
art and culture at Columbia opened up another world to him.
He realized, he said, "that acting encompassed a whole way of life," and the
process isn't simply limited to the roll of a camera. 40 years later, he
understands that sharing screen space with other great actors does not put a cap
on his expression.
The more somebody's got to give back to your work, the more freedom an actor
has to project back his own interpretation, he said. That was quite apparent to
Janet Maslin after revealing a clip of the profanity laced Glengary Glen Rose.
Jack Lemon, Al Pacino and Alec Baldwin, she said, "You not only out acted them,
you out yelled them."
"I out F...ed 'em too," he said to the audience's delight but given the
somewhat free reign that fame has provided him has not diminished the
graciousness that has probably helped get him this far. "Congratulations on this
facility and I'm honored you asked me to be here," he concluded.
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