Ed Harris

Edward Allen Harris was born November 28, 1950, to Robert and Margaret Harris in Englewood, New Jersey, the second of three sons (Robert, the eldest, and Spencer, the youngest). Ed's father, Bob, was a singer with the Fred Waring chorus and had appeared on the Perry Como and Carol Burnett shows.

Ed, an outstanding athlete, entered Columbia University with the hopes of becoming a pro-football player. However, at 5'9" he was smaller than the other players and not as fast. So, during his sophmore year, he abandoned his dream of a career in professional sports. He transferred to the University of Oklahoma where his parents had relocated. It was here he began to study acting.

In 1973, at the age of 23, Mr. Harris moved to Los Angeles. He attended the California Institute of Arts, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in 1975. In 1978, he was cast in his first movie, "Coma". The following year he received critical acclaim portraying Billy in "Knightriders."

Ed Harris met actress Amy Madigan, a former rock musician turned actress, in 1981 on a stage production of Prairie Avenue. They dated for two years and subsequently, were married in Waxahachie, Texas, in 1983, during the filming of Places in the Heart. The Harris' have one daughter, Lily.

Mr. Harris made his New York stage debut in Sam Shepard's Fool For Love, which earned him the 1983 Obie Award for Outstanding Actor. He also received a Tony nomination and the Drama Desk Award for his Broadway debut in George Furth's Precious Sons. Since that time, Mr. Harris has earned two Los Angeles Theater Critics Association Awards (see Awards and Nominations) and remains very active in the Los Angeles Theater today.

Ed Harris' feature film, Pollock marks his directorial debut and features him in the title role. It made its world premier this fall at the Venice Film Festival, followed by a North American debut at the Toronto Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. It is based on the Pulitzer prize-winning biography Jackson Pollock: An American Saga by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith and co-stars Marcia Gay Harden. It also features Harris' wife, actress Amy Madigan, in the role of Peggy Guggenheim.

Sniper Ed Harris is sent to assassinate Jude Law in Enemy At The Gates

NEW YORK -- In Jean-Jacques Annaud's new epic Enemy At The Gates, Ed Harris' liquid eyes bore holes in all before him, like lasers.

In real life, Harris' penetrating gaze signals that this is a serious, sombre man on a singular quest. As one of Hollywood's finest actor-filmmakers, he does not suffer fools gladly, if at all.

In the new Second World War movie -- which opens Friday -- Harris' death stare signals that his character is on a mission that could change history. As a Nazi sniper sent to Stalingrad to win a war of propaganda in 1942, he does not want to suffer defeat.

So Annaud films the 50-year-old Harris in extreme close-ups, mining the cold crystalline nature of the American's eyes for maximum effect. That effect is chilling.

"Suddenly, with Ed's remarkable eyes," Annaud's executive producer Alisa Tager said during the filming in Germany last year, "the menace of the piece had arrived."

In a story based on true-life accounts, Harris plays a decorated but brutal sharpshooter named Major Konig. He is sent to the Soviet Union to kill a single Russian during the staggering carnage of the Battle of Stalingrad, which many historians consider the pivotal battle of the war.

Major Konig's target also is a sniper, a humble peasant named Vassili Zaitsev (played in the film by rising English star Jude Law). Through the Soviet propaganda machine, Zaitsev has become a national hero. His exploits -- some real, some pure hype -- have rallied the Russian people to stand up to the superior German troops through sheer bravado. The face-off of two snipers becomes a focal point for the whole battle.

"I was flabbergasted to see that those two men had more importance than the 5,000 that were dying every day," says Annaud, the passionate Frenchman famous for Quest For Fire, The Bear, The Name Of The Rose and Seven Years In Tibet. Annaud had researched the saga of Stalingrad thoroughly and found the reference to the two snipers in at least 20 separate volumes, including in American historian William Craig's volume Enemy At The Gates, the genesis for the US$90-million film.

Annaud calls the sniper stalking and final face-off "an anecdote that has the status of myth." It played into his fascination with a particular kind of cinema storytelling.

"I saw in the core of that story the potential to do exactly what I like in movies: Very tight shots and then wide shots. (It is ideal) to be with the intimacy of a few heroes -- I shouldn't say heroes in this case -- to be with a few 'people' sharing their action, and understanding the big thing around through their hearts and eyes. Then the camera pulls out to see the wide-scale action."

For his part in this drama, Harris is sanguine and perhaps ingenuous.

"I knew he was shooting some real close-ups, but Jean-Jacques was doing what he wanted. He was totally involved in the film, passionate about it, and he really knew what he wanted. I was pretty much just trying to do the best I could for him. So we didn't get to have too many discussions. Well, he is pretty verbal so he probably talked about it but I just listened."

At the time, Harris was mentally exhausted. He had just finished -- or so he thought at the time -- post-production on his own directorial effort, the biopic Pollock. Both he and his co-star, Marcia Gay Harden, are up for Oscars late this month for that movie. But Harris wasn't happy about the final cut of Pollock then, and would later go back to revise and polish the film. He was also stretched thin financially.

"I would have loved to take a break after Pollock (which opens in Toronto the same day as Enemy), but I pumped a lot of my own money into Pollock and I didn't have any alternative but to do some work," Harris says.

So he took the role in Enemy At The Gates for the money, but not frivolously. He had admired Annaud since he and the director made the daring prehistoric drama Quest For Fire in Canada in the early 1980s.

"Jean-Jacques is a guy who I respected as a director and he came into my life at a time when I needed to work a little, and the guy (Major Konig) seemed like an interesting part and Jean-Jacques was really interested in me doing it. I know from directing that, when you want an actor, you 'want' an actor. You don't want someone else. You want who you want -- and it's nice to be wanted."

Their working relationship was stellar, Annaud says. He was delighted with all his cast, including Harris, Law and co-stars Joseph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz and Bob Hoskins.

"This movie has been a good experience," Annaud says.

"(The cast) was professional, enthusiastic, dedicated, humble, very well-read and extremely well-trained, because they all do theatre. It's an absolute wonder to have been so happy."

Harris admires Annaud, too. You can see it in his eyes.

Love it, hate it or even ignore it -- actor Ed Harris doesn't much care what anyone thinks of The Third Miracle, his current release.

The Agnieszka Holland movie, starring Harris as a conflicted Roman Catholic priest who investigates a reputed religious miracle in Chicago, is already a kind of miracle for him.

"I just want to try to do something," Harris told The Toronto Sun in a recent interview. "I just want to create something. Things in Hollywood get twisted and turned and tied up into bunches of frustration. So it's nice sometimes to work with someone (the Polish-born Holland) who cares about it, who has a point of view about a question that seems important, and that most people in the world deal with."

That issue is faith in God. Raised in a devout Presbyterian household in suburban New Jersey and rural Oklahoma, Harris says he is much like many people he knows -- caught up in his own conflict and doubts about religion, about his relationship with God.

'My own questions'

"To me," he says of shooting The Third Miracle on location in Toronto, "it was really an opportunity to spend some time with my own questions, and deal with them honestly. One of the things that I like about this film is its complexity. The danger in this type of film is superficiality or the lack of penetration that could make something on this subject matter seem almost hokey."

The modest actor enthuses, uncharacteristically, about the film. "It fills a hole. It feels good. There is an experience that takes place. It's not about answers. The whole thing is about surrendering to the question."

The 49-year-old Harris, a two-time Oscar nominee (for Apollo 13 in 1995 and The Truman Show in 1998), is an actor's actor. Always busy, always respected, he is sometimes the star of smaller films such as The Third Miracle, an indie production. He is often the support player in studio projects, such as in The Truman Show opposite Jim Carrey.

Harris is making his directorial debut later this year with Pollock, in which he also stars as the troubled but hugely influential abstract American painter Jackson Pollock, whom Harris uncannily resembles.

Another troublesome question for Harris is Hollywood morality, from the lousy movies to the impulse to dumb everything down.

"There comes a point for me where I kind of stop asking myself 'those' questions," he says.

"It's a f---ed up place and it's a great place. There are great films made and there are totally preposterous films made. There are certain things that are just and certain things that are totally unjust.

'All I want to do is act'

"But all I want to do is act. I'm not saying I want to be irresponsible, but it bugs me when I think about it -- which is why I try not to think about it."

So a film such as The Third Miracle salves the wound. "When I saw the film I felt so very, very good about it, and I was free because I didn't care what anyone says about it.

"I mean, I do care, but I'm already satisfied. If someone doesn't appreciate it, that's their business. What of it? This is just a bunch of folks trying to do something, and it was a something worth doing."

Friday, June 5, 1998

Show-stopper

Ed Harris shines again in Truman

By STEVE TILLEY -- Express Writer

NEW YORK -- When Ed Harris raises his voice in anger, you listen. You listen very, very well.

The imposing presence behind such roles as NASA's Gene Kranz in Apollo 13 and no-nonsense Gen. Francis X. Hummel in The Rock is equally commanding in person, despite his wiry frame and relaxed manner.

Mostly relaxed, that is.

In The Truman Show, Harris plays Christof, an intense, godlike director who oversees the production of the world's most popular television program. One in which the star, played by Jim Carrey, has no idea he's on TV.

With the proliferation of hidden cameras everywhere from offices to streetcorners and the soaring ratings enjoyed by voyeuristic reality based television programming, the premise of The Truman Show, opening today, seems disturbingly plausible.

It's something Harris blames on people's willingness to avoid taking responsibility for their own lives by immersing themselves in the 500-channel make-believe universe.

"It's much easier to sit down and look at the tube and deal with someone else's life than deal with your own," Harris says, his voice rising in irritation to something close to a shout.

"You would think people would want to be enriched and see something that would give something back and make them reflect a little bit and think about themselves or their relationship to their family or their god or their life."

Harris's voice returns to normal, and the handful of reporters gathered in this 45th-floor Manhattan hotel suite collectively resume breathing.

With that kind of intensity on tap, it's little wonder that Australian director Peter Weir, the man behind Dead Poets Society, Witness and The Year of Living Dangerously, chose Harris for the role of Christof after Dennis Hopper inexplicably bailed out of the project.

"I got a call from my agent, and he said Peter Weir was making this film with Jim Carrey," Harris recalls.

"Right away I was a little confused ... it didn't seem like a combination that made any sense to me, knowing the work Jim had done and the work Peter had done."

Paramount is keenly aware of the public's expectations when it comes to the man with the rubber face, and the studio is being very careful to make it clear that The Truman Show is a movie starring Jim Carrey, not a Jim Carrey movie.

He does not, for example, speak through his butt.

But Carrey is drawing major praise for his first semi-dramatic role - one in which he accepted a $12 million US paycheque instead of his standard $20 million. Harris, meanwhile, is already generating some Oscar buzz.

"Early favorites in the Kentucky Derby rarely win," he says with a half-smile.

Harris and Carrey met at Elton John's party after the 1996 Oscars, when Harris was nominated for Apollo 13.

"Jim and I talked for quite a while," Harris says. "I really liked him, we had a good time and I felt very comfortable with him. He was very down to earth.

"I think he's very honest, he's got a certain innocence and vulnerability in this piece. He's really genuine, I think. I think he's quite beautiful in it."

The character of Christof, on the other hand, is not innocent. But Harris says he's not evil, either.

"I don't think he considers questions of morality. He's far beyond that in terms of what he's thinking about."

And no, his portrayal of Christof was not inspired by James Cameron, who helmed Titanic and also directed Harris in 1989's The Abyss.

"They're totally different people coming from different places," Harris says. "(Christof) is not a yeller and a screamer. This guy's a quiet, contained, reclusive, powerful man."

Harris will next be seen in Good Night Moon, co-starring with Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon. After that, he finally has the green light to begin one of his career ambitions - directing and starring in a movie about the life of American artist Jackson Pollock.

Tuesday, June 2, 1998

Ed runs the show

Taking on comedy with Carrey

By LOUIS B. HOBSON -- Calgary Sun

NEW YORK -- Ed Harris may have all the right stuff, but Hollywood often finds it difficult to know what to do with that stuff.

For one thing, Harris has a reputation for being intense -- on and off camera.

He's the man who reportedly slugged James Cameron on the set of The Abyss, claiming Cameron had endangered lives by prolonging a dangerous underwater sequence.

"Jim was asking us to do life-threatening things in that tank and then calling us crybabies when we complained," he says of the Abyss experience.

Harris is probably best known for his performance as astronaut John Glenn in 1985's The Right Stuff, but it was his second trip to outer space in Ron Howard's Apollo 13 that got Harris his long-overdue Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.

His steely-eyed intensity is well documented in such films as Absolute Power, The Firm, The Rock, State of Grace and Jackknife.

In The Truman Show, Harris plays Christof, the maniacal creator of a television show that has kept Jim Carrey's character, Truman Burbank, a virtual prisoner for 30 years.

By the time Truman begins rebelling, Christof is no longer just playing at being a god, he almost believes he is one. Once again, it's Harris' glowering intensity that brings a chilling edge to the film.

"I don't think of myself as being intense," says Harris, 46. "It's the perception other people have of me. It probably comes from the roles I routinely play and maybe from my younger days."

When he was a struggling stage actor in Los Angeles, Harris got into his share of bar brawls.

"I used to drink a lot of beer back then," he says. "I don't drink much any more. I was never much of an outgoing guy. I used to hide behind the beer.

"I think I do better socially now than I did in those days."

He has little choice. He has responsibilities. He and his actress wife Amy Madigan have a five-year-old daughter, Lily Delores.

"Lily has helped me set the priorities in my life.

"She's the boss. She defines what you do. She's only five. I can't conceive what it's going to be like when she's 16."

Growing up in Tenafly, New Jersey, Harris was a star athlete who attended New York's Columbia University on an athletic scholarship. It was at university he became obsessed with acting.

"As soon as I went on stage, I wanted to do nothing else with my life but act. I always liked the attention that playing sports had brought, but acting fulfilled that need even better."

Harris has just completed filming The Stepmom, in which he plays Susan Sarandon's former husband and Julia Roberts' new husband.

"They're both lovely ladies and real professionals. We had a fun time," is all Harris will say about his leading ladies.

Harris never actually met Carrey on the set of The Truman Show.

"My scenes are filmed in a different set. Jim had completed his scenes before I was actually signed onto the film."

Harris replaced Dennis Hopper, who experienced "creative differences" with director Peter Weir.

"I met Jim at a post-Oscar party the year I was nominated for Apollo 13.

"We talked for quite a while and I really liked him. I found him very down-to-earth.

"Though we never actually worked together on The Truman Show, I felt I had a rapport with him because his image was always on the screens on my set."

Wednesday, May 27, 1998

Ed Harris still hates James Cameron

By JIM SLOTEK -- Toronto Sun

Ed Harris, who'll be seen next week playing an egomaniac TV producer in the Jim Carrey film The Truman Show, was a cynical viewer of this year's Oscars. Harris fought with Titanic director James Cameron on the grueling flop The Abyss and still carries a grudge.

"When he (Cameron) got the Oscar for direction, he actually started out kinda humble, thanking his mom and dad," Harris told us. "I was like 'Jim! I am so glad you chose this occasion to be humble'... Then it was 'I'M KING OF THE WORLD!' And I was like 'Arrgghh! Why Jim, why?' No joy, no glee, just desperate need. This town will do it to you, I guess."

July 6, 1995

Ed 'Thinking' Hunk

By BOB THOMPSON
Toronto Sun

HOUSTON - Look up `intensity' in the dictionary, and you'd see Ed Harris glaring back at you.

Intimidating yes. But sexless? No.

In some Hollywood circles, Harris is called the thinking woman's sex symbol.

When he's told about the label, he actually grins bashfully.

"Ooh, that sounds like a good one," says Harris. "And I think all women think, so that's a pretty nice thing to say to me."

Indeed, Harris joins a hunk ensemble in Ron Howard's Apollo 13. Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton play astronauts piloting a crippled spacecraft back to Earth. Gary Sinise is one of the back-up astronauts, while Harris portrays the main Mission Control man.

Based on astronaut Jim Lovell's book, Lost Moon, Apollo 13 tells the true story of the 1970 Apollo craft that had its oxygen tank explode, forcing the crew to steer the crippled craft back to Earth.

For reality's sake, the "actornauts" filmed the weightless sequences in NASA's KC-135 weightless simulator jet, tagged the Vomit Comet. For Harris's sake, he decided to pass on the experience, even though he was invited.

"I figured I did The Abyss - that was my Apollo 13," reports Harris, referring to his underwater adventure movie.

There were no nauseating weightless moments thanks to the Vomit Comet in Harris's other astronaut movie, The Right Stuff.

"At the time, they wouldn't let us do it for insurance reasons," says the actor who played John Glenn.

Imagine that, two space films. So Harris must be a space program junkie.

"No, it's coincidental," he says. "I certainly wasn't building rockets in my backyard when I was 12 like Jim Lovell did.

"I appreciate scientific knowledge and space explorations. But when I was a kid, I wanted to play maybe professional football."

What happened? "Five-nine and 155 pounds, and not terrifically fast."

He did become a decent, and usually busy, actor.

For instance:

- Harris is still trying to get his movie profile of painter Jackson Pollack made. "The script is down from 230 pages to 165, but it will likely be a small independent type thing, and not anytime soon."

- He's putting together a TNT telefilm of Zane Grey's New Riders Of The Purple Sage with wife Amy Madigan. "It's something I've wanted to do for 10 years, and it will be my first western."

In a higher profile there is a cameo in Oliver Stone's Nixon. Harris plays Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt - "I heard he was on the set but I missed him."

"I'm only in it briefly," he says of the biopic. "I shot three scenes in three days."

What's Stone's version of Nixon all about?

"It's one of those scripts where you sign this thing that says I will not discuss it."

Having said that, Harris offers a mini-preview: "It's not a condemnation of the man, neither is it a white wash. I think it's honest."

Even Oliver Stone doesn't intimidate Ed Harris.