A  Cineman Syndicate feature

HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE: RICHARD HARRIS 
INTERVIEW 

* By Prairie Miller 
    

     Looking more like an apparition from his latest movie 
Harry Potter than Richard Harris himself, the rambunctious 
actor seemingly floated into the room in a long wine red 
cloak and dangling locks of white hair framing his animated 
facial expressions. But there was no doubt that I'd be in 
for a highly unusual rendezvous when I caught a glimpse of 
his scruffy running shoes peeking out from beneath the 
regal cloak. 
     Projecting an image that was part princely wizard and 
part bagman, Harris dove quickly into more serious 
territory, such as why Harris went for Harry, despite his 
own most adamant reservations. It turned out, according to 
the thespian vet, to have something to do with ultimately 
accepting an offer he couldn't refuse, due to a child's 
spell cast over him of nearly Harry Potteresque 
proportions. In other words, Harris revealed himself during 
this interview to be not such a man's man that a little 
lady can't still twist the big bloke around her finger. 
Harris also spouted some homespun philosophy about the pub 
battlefields that have come and gone in his admittedly 
boisterous life. 
 

RICHARD HARRIS: I see you're recording this, so I'll have 
to behave myself. Well look, before you turn your tape 
recorder on, let me say this.... #%&*$#!! Okay, no more of 
that. Carry on. 
 

* It may be a little more difficult after that, but here 
goes. How do you feel about complaints from your co-stars 
that they're not being paid fairly for their work in Harry 
Potter? 
 

RH: Oh really? I didn't know that. Well, they paid me very 
well, I must tell you. I will say this. I may have to do 
the whole lot of these Harry Potter movies. But I think 
Robbie Coltrane's agent is better than mine, because he's 
got a choice to do as many of them as he wants. But I have 
to do the lot. And I agreed to do them all for free. But I 
wanted two and a half percent of the royalties from the 
merchandising. And they told me, we'll pay you any money 
you like, but you're not getting any piece of the picture! 
    But hang on now. The thing in England is this. If you 
do a picture in England with an English equity contract, 
your salary includes a residual buyout. And that would have 
nothing to do with Warner Bros. That's the law. That's 
England. 

* I also heard they cyber-scammed you for the video game, 
so you won't get any piece of that. 
 

RH: No, not a thing. 

* What made you want to do Harry Potter for free? 
 

RH: Two and a half percent! That's two and a half percent 
of the merchandising. They're anticipating 700 million in 
profits. That's two and a half percent of 700 million. 
C'mon, quick, quick!    
 

* The money aside, what particular sorcery lured you into 
the Harry Potter movie? 
 

RH: I didn't want to do the pictures. I never read the 
books, and I never will read the books. It's not my kind of 
reading. But the script was super. So I said okay, I'll do 
it. And then came the rough part. Which was, if you do one, 
you've got to do them all. So I said no to it. I turned it 
down. 
 

* What made you change your mind? 
 

RH: My granddaughter. She was eleven then. And she's a 
Harry Potter fanatic. She read in the papers that all the 
actors in the world were queuing up to do it, but that 
Richard Harris won't do it. Typical Harris, they said. 
     Anyway, she rang me up and told me that if I didn't go 
and play Dumbledore in the movie, that she'd never speak to 
me again. And since it meant an awful lot to her, I said 
okay, I'll do it. But acting is perfect, it only lasts 
about ten weeks. Then I have the rest of the time to go to 
the pub, and have free time. 
  

* So was that a good career move, or what? 
 

RH: I don't know. What's a good career move at my age? I 
mean, I'm at the pinnacle of my decline! 
 

* Do you ever worry that your very provocative observations 
about the movie world might come back to bite you on the 
butt? 
 

RH: Hey, I've done that all my life. And I'm still working. 
I'm still in demand, and I've done that all my life. I've 
said exactly what I feel like saying. Wait a minute, what 
did I say that was naughty? 
 

*You know, that comment about Tom Cruise. 
 

RH: Oh that...Okay, yeah. But I'm sorry, I don't mix in my 
profession at all. My mates have got nothing to do with 
acting, directing, or those lovie dovies in the English 
theater. I don't hate them, I just don't want to be around 
them. It's not my life. 
     I make a movie, I love to act, and I like being an 
actor. But I don't like the acting profession, or the 
people associated with it. That's all. And they're probably 
very happy to be without me in their company as well. 
Because I can be very rude...Now, what was your question? 
 

* It was about Tom Cruise. 
 

RH: Oh yes! Look here, my first movie that I did, was with 
James Cagney. Now, wasn't he a huge star? Well, he came to 
Dublin himself. And there weren't fifty-five bodyguards, 
and there wasn't a private jet. He didn't have his 
dietician. He didn't have his psychiatrist to motivate him. 
He didn't have his makeup artist or his hairdresser. He 
came on his own. 
     On my second picture, Bob Mitchum, the same thing. My 
third picture, Gary Cooper, all huge stars, same thing. 
What goes on now is so stupid. It's like creating 
importance around themselves. On the other hand, I like a 
guy that a lot of people don't like here in the States. And 
that's Russell Crowe. A down to earth guy. 
    When I was finishing up on Gladiator, Russell and I 
kind of hung around together. He'd come to my pubs, he'd 
walk in, sit down, no fuss. He took me to his pubs, the 
Australia pubs in London, no fuss. That's what I like. And 
I hope he stays like that. And that's why people don't like 
Russell in Hollywood. He says what he feels, and he doesn't 
play the game. He's really from my generation, from the 
O'Toole, Harris and Burton generation. You know, no bull.  
 

* Maybe that was a different time. Actors would fly alone 
to Dublin, but you didn't have planes flying into buildings 
back then. 
 

RH: Ah, listen up. Sorry. Do you actually mean to tell me 
that if somebody wants to kill Tom Cruise, that they would 
get through fifty bodyguards? That's crap. And let me tell 
you something else. When Russell Crowe walked into my local 
pub in London, there was no fuss. If he walked in with 
eight bodyguards, there'd be a fuss. 
    He would draw attention. He would aggravate people. 
There'd be a rout. You're inciting it yourself. You're 
inciting an importance. And now these actors who surround 
themselves with bodyguards, they're all mini-talented for a 
start. And now they all have opinions about world politics. 
Give us a break! Read a script! 

* Speaking of scripts, somebody should make a movie about 
the lot of you. 
 

RH: I don't think anyone would finance it. And I wouldn't 
give 'em the rights. No, no. I wouldn't even write my 
autobiography. 
 

* Why not? 
 

RH: I've been offered fortunes for it, but no. You know, 
you've got to write about all the women you've been with. 
They're all grandmothers now. But sexuality between two 
people is private. You don't capitalize on it and make 
money out of it, just to show what a great ladies man you 
were. You don't do that. I think people who do that, I hope 
the money burns in their pocket. I don't need that. I 
wouldn't do that. And that's what they want when they ask 
you to do it. They'll tell you, we want to know, give us 
the lot. No, no. I won't do that. 
    I'll tell you, I'm a great man about my freedom. That's 
why I really have to suffer this Warner Bros. thing. 
Because I don't like authority, and I don't like having to 
ask somebody's permission to do something. That's why the 
only two times I've been miscast in my life, was in my two 
marriages. I'm not a good husband. I hate to be told, 
you're late for dinner. Excuse me, you have dinner. I may 
not be here. Where will you be? I have no idea. And if 
you're not here, I won't ask you where you are.  

* But you'd have some good stories to tell if you wanted 
to, right? Like your bedroom exploits. 
 

RH: Ah, yes! I would have a lot of good stories to tell, 
but I'm not going to tell 'em. Even now, to you. 
 

* What goes through your mind when you get in an elevator, 
and MacArthur Park is playing? 
 

RH: I pretend I'm deaf! It was too long. Seven minutes and 
twenty seconds. We were the first seven minute and twenty 
second record. We broke the four-minute barrier. Then the 
Beatles came along after, with Hey Jude. They went on and 
on repeating 'hey Jude,' just to beat us.   
 

* You don't seem to mind much right now, but do you care 
what people will say about you when you're gone? 
 

RH: Nope. I couldn't care less about reputations, not at 
all. For a start, I won't be around! 
 

* What about those ripping yarns we hear about you movie 
star guys, are they true or fabricated? 
 

RH: No, they're all true, I'm afraid. What surprises me is 
that we're still alive. We're still here to talk about it! 
O'Toole, I think he's a bit younger than I am. So he's not 
quite seventy, and I'm seventy-one. But it's a phenomenon 
that we're alive. 
 

* You mean after all your hard living? 
 

RH: Oh Christ, yeah! You could fill the Titanic with what 
we've drank!

Copyright 2001 by Prairie Miller