The power of “42″: Chadwick Boseman on becoming Jackie Robinson
Chadwick Boseman, star of the sports drama “42″, talks about training like a pro and working alongside Harrison Ford in
Read More »MY LIFE AS AN ACTOR
The first in a series of actors’ reminiscences researched by Jack Tewkesbury:
HARRISON FORD
AT FIRST, ACTING WAS ONLY A MENTAL EXERCISE
I was a college intellectual — you know, the kind of a guy who can write in three languages on a restroom wall.
I was a philosophy major in college, which prepares you to do nothing but teach philosophy or write. I had done a couple of plays. I was looking for something that was challenging and would provide me with a variety of experience.
When I first went on stage I was frightened to death, so I was interested in overcoming that fear. Later I became fascinated with the process of working with a group of people. If I had known then how difficalt it was to get a job as an actor, I might have tried something else.
But even then I thought of it as a job you worked on for a finite time, and when you finished that you went on to something else. It seemed an interesting, productive way to live.
I worked as a carpenter only because I was doing the same part over and over again on episodic television. I wanted to begin to control my own career, so I found another way of making money to pay for the food and rent. I wanted to be able to choose from among the parts that were offered me. I never gave up my desire to be an actor.
I’m not the type who hides behind a character. Neither am I a rubbernosed actor. I don’t go for accents or vocal characterizations. I pretty much use myself in my films, but I don’t rewrite the role in terms of myself. I try to play the character.
I never lose sight of the fact that I’m acting. I don’t became so immersed in the part that, if you were to talk to me after the camera stopped rolling, I would still be in character. I’ve never developed anything for myself because many times, when projects are developed with a specific actor in mind, they tend to lean on his supposed strengths and avoid what are thought to be his weaknesses.
I would rather play something written for Dustin Hoffman than what is written for me. I don’t think a character should be written to serve an actor. He should be created both by the screenwritter and the actor to serve the story.
—Jack Tewkesbury
Read More »HARRISON FORD: I FOUND LOVE AT THE GOLDEN GLOBES
Indiana Jones star Harrison Ford has particularly fond memories of the
2002 Golden Globes awards.
He has attended many Golden Globe shows but 2002 was the year he received the prestigious Cecil B de Mille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures. And he also won another, special prize. “That’s where I met my wife, so it has particularly good memories for me,” he said.
He and Calista Flockart were together for eight years before they married in June 2009 in Santa Fe, New Mexico while he was on location filming Cowboys and Aliens.
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