By Bill Muller
Harrison Ford may be the star of the modern- day ghost story "What Lies Beneath", but that doesn't necessarily mean he likes horror movies.
Or even watches them.
"The last scary movie I went to and enjoyed was Bambi," Ford says in a recent interview. "I was about six years old, and it scared the bejesus out of me."
"What Lies Beneath" is Ford's first real foray into the supernatural, unless you count the occult elements in the Indiana Jones series. He says he took the role because it's different from what he's done lately and allowed him to work with director Bob Zemeckis and co-star Michelle Pfeiffer.
He also liked the script, or as he puts it "The quality of the set up, the establishing of the relationship and the surprises the plot holds for us."
"It's a very emotionally truthful film," Ford adds. "And I think that's one of the reasons you get sucked into it as an audience."
Ford, 58, plays Dr Norman Spencer, a respected researcher married to the beautiful Claire (Pfeiffer). The couple's idyllic life begins to unravel after their picturesque Vermont lakehouse is haunted by the spirit of a woman who looks remarkably like Claire.
"The events are seen from her perspective," Ford says. "It's her point of view, because she's the one with the problem."
The film's stylistic camera work smacks a little Alfred Hitchcock, though Ford says, "'What Lies Beneath' takes it up a notch from the 'master of suspense'."
"As much as I admire the tradition the Hitchcock.. I never really believed his characters," he says, "to the extent that I think these characters are beleivable."
"I think we invested a lot more in the emotional reality of these characters and less in the plotting elements that were typical of Hitchcock."
For Ford's fans, this is a departure from roles like Han Solo, Indiana Jones, and the president of the United States, which he played in "Air Force One". Ford, who thinks of his fans as customers, says that's the idea.\
"I think the people who have been my customers over the years have enjoyed the fact that we don't serve the same meal every time," he says.
The fact remains, however, that Ford gained his fame as an action hero, from "Star Wars" and "Raider's of the Lost Ark" to films like "The Fugitive" and "Patriot Games". But he hasn't done much action-adventure in the past few years.
"I haven't really read anything in the action genre in the last couple of years I thought was good enough to do," he says. "I'm a bit tired of the motivations for action that they generally use. Retribution and revenge bore me now."
In his films, Ford says, he tries to establish that violence has costs, both for the victim and the perpatrator.
"I hate gratuitous violence," he explains. "I hate indiscriminate gunplay for the entertainment value."
Ford also talked about recent revelations about the cult classic "Blade Runner", in which he plays a detective trying to hunt down rogue "replicants"- artificial life forms that resemble humans. After the release of the movie's "director's cut" on DVD, fans began to see more clues that Ford's characters, Deckard, was a replican himself.
Director Ridley Scott recently removed all doubt, telling the BBC that Deckard was indeed a replicant.
But Ford says that as far as he's concerned, the character in the 1982 film was human. He says that during the filming, he battled Scott to keep Deckard human, "because I think the audience deserved one proxy on stage."
"I was aware that Ridley did not fully agree with me... He kept slipping in little details which indicate I was a replicant," he says.
Ford maintains that it would be difficult to replicate "What Lies Beneath", which he considers top notch:
"It's scary, surprising, unexpected, accomplished and fun."