The renowned actor and son of legendary thespian Richard Harris discusses his father's legacy (includinga spooky onset moment), the difficult task of embodying John Lennon, and which films he thinks deserve more love from his filmography. Harris has carved out a distinguished career in film and television, often portraying complex, nuanced characters. He gained widespread acclaim for his role as Lane Pryce in the hit series Mad Men and later for his portrayal of Valery Legasov in the HBO miniseries Chernobyl, which earned him critical praise and an Emmy nomination.
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00:00Like you say yourself your father was in a way unknowable you said he said the greatest performance he ever played was Richard Harris
00:09Okay, I think that probably was approval or disapproval
00:12What do you think hello and welcome to go to bat series where we shine a light on the films that deserve more love?
00:18I'm here joined today
00:20By Jared Harris. How are you?
00:22Well, thank you for inviting me. Oh, thank you for coming in really really great to see you and I watched reawakening. Okay good
00:31Lovely
00:32so I
00:33Don't want to I kind of give a brief rundown of a plot
00:36But it's a bit of a special plot in that you don't I just don't know how much you're meant to give away
00:41So I'm gonna throw it over to you to kind of explain. Well, it's basically the story is about a it's a couple whose
00:48Daughter ran away from home when she was 13 or 14 years old and a decade has passed
00:54And the they do a sort of a new police
00:59Reenactment and an appeal for any
01:03information and
01:05shortly after that this 24 year old woman comes forward and
01:09Claims that she's their long-lost daughter and the mother
01:14Accepts her immediately and the father doesn't he doesn't recognize her and the irony is is that he's the one that never stopped looking
01:22Over the 10 years
01:24whereas the mother had kind of reconciled itself to the fact that she wasn't gonna see her again and then that it starts to
01:31sort of twist this
01:33family apart as they're
01:35He doesn't understand he starts to doubt himself
01:38Why did I recognize him my wife does and then in that sort of typical male mind is he wants the facts?
01:45He wants to know the information. He wants to know all the details and
01:50And his wife just doesn't care she's prepared to accept it the way it is
01:54Yeah, I guess you didn't have much time to kind of get to know Erin off screen
01:59No, I I met Juliet for a pint like three days before we started shooting
02:04But all of that work we just did on the day, you know, yeah
02:08Yeah, and you just you know, you just I mean luckily as well Virginia
02:12Gilbert who's the writer director?
02:15She always made room for you'd sit and talk about the scene you're about to do and you'd
02:20Discuss each other's thoughts about it, you know
02:23and she was open to if she heard some good idea she'd pinch it and put it in, you know, and
02:30So in that sense, it was a little bit more like a sort of theatrical
02:34Experience where you're rehearsing a play and you discuss you start to pull the material apart before you put it back together, you know
02:45She could possibly want
02:55So I want to kind of like put the focus back on your
03:00Old credits and this series go to bat. We like to ask people to shine a light on the credits
03:06They personally believe that you know deserve more love was generally underrated or generally little seen
03:11So, can you tell us what projects you have decided to speak about
03:18Well, one was the documentary that I helped make about my father called the ghost of Richard Harris
03:23At least if I died tomorrow, you knew that I was here enjoyed
03:28Tempest of life the unique look at the life of Richard Harris the image of himself to schools
03:35Overtaken everything else about him. I really recommend watching it
03:39It's an insightful
03:41Documentary it's honest and it's it's I've got to ask was it did it feel therapeutic doing a documentary like that?
03:48Well, we've been trying for a really long time
03:51so there was a sense of
03:53Relief about finally getting it off the ground because we've been trying for over 10 years
03:58Richard Harris is such a beloved figure always will be is it almost like you kind of you feel like you owe it to the
04:05World's like you say yourself. Your father was in a way unknowable. You said he said the greatest performance he ever played was Richard Harris
04:15Okay, I think that probably was approval or disapproval
04:20Because that quite often happens when you're talking about him. I mean it is called the ghost
04:27Gods was it almost a treat to his fans essentially to shine a light on side of him that they might not know
04:34You know the side of his
04:37About him that keeps being regurgitated is the the hellraiser part about of him
04:42He fed it
04:43So is and he did it on purpose and he was doing it
04:48Partly to help sell tickets and you know, and he knew that was something like the press enjoyed so he'd give it to them
04:54But at some point I feel like it was at the detriment towards him being taken seriously
04:59It's something that he took very seriously. He cared about his career and he cared about his work
05:03You know, someone said to me once of course, you know, you're an alcoholic. I
05:09Said I'm not no
05:12If you think so, that's okay
05:14It doesn't mean that I am it makes you feel good. That's okay
05:18It doesn't do anything for me to be taught what I am. All I know is
05:23That I drank because I loved it. There was no book or biography written about him
05:29He never unfortunately, he started to write his autobiography in the hospital when he was sick
05:33And then one of the nurses threw out all of his notes. So along with all this sort of newspapers and stuff
05:39So yeah, but I don't know how far he got with it. But so, you know, I just wanted something that
05:46Gave you an idea of what he who he wasn't what he was like and you get close you get very close to it
05:52it's it's not the whole picture at all one of the things that I
05:57Sort of which we got more of was he was very funny
06:01You know you wanted to be sat at his end of the table at a dinner party
06:06You know because it was always that was so lively and and you know
06:10He liked nothing more than telling stories and hearing stories
06:14Just hearing crazy stuff that people had done crazy things that had happened to him. I mean he had the most
06:20Outrageous life nuts
06:22Nutty things would happen to him, you know, and he loved it
06:26Do you still feel because I feel like it was part of why?
06:30Documentary work so well
06:31Is that you and your brothers are kind of learning things on the fly that you didn't know about him?
06:35And that's I never knew that he were how he signed
06:39His letters to my younger brother with a little picture face him because he never did that with me
06:45No, and he had that was the other part about me he had very distinct relationships with
06:51Individuals he didn't have the same relationship with everybody. So that was what was also interesting about
06:58Doing it the approaching it the way that we did was
07:00He he was different things to different people and we were going to discover what that was
07:05It was after he passed away. I was buying first-night gifts on
07:10On a place on settled court and the woman goes
07:13Oh your father used to come in here all the time by first night gives he used to drop to one knee and sing opera
07:18to me
07:19Never in my life heard him sing opera ever
07:23But I know that's a career. He would like to have had
07:26He said that a couple of times, but I never heard him sing opera afterwards
07:31Did you kind of learn anything that has informed your career after that you made that documentary to his career?
07:37Yeah, he had
07:39Completely different cards you get dealt like five cards. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you have to play them throughout your life
07:45Yeah, and I didn't I wasn't dealt the same cards that he was dealt
07:49So and I would love to have had but I wasn't those those were his things that he got and I got something else
07:55And you have to play those. Sure. Sure. I mean your cards are great as well. They they are great
08:00I'm sure there's a casting director somewhere who's looking at this new Harry Potter series being made at HB Max in King
08:06No, thank you Dumbledore
08:08Wouldn't that be a great idea?
08:10Also, I mean why do I understand them the films were fantastic leave them alone
08:14They're making um, it's gonna be a 10 episode series for each film for each book each book
08:20Yeah, yeah
08:21Okay. I mean that's a lot of storytelling
08:24So you've actually picked another project as well
08:27Which I was really glad you picked because I I liked the opportunities of watching this. So can you introduce?
08:32Other was this movie that we made for vh1. It was when they were getting into the
08:39scripted programming that and it was a movie called the two of us and it's a
08:45fictionalized account of
08:48a
08:50meeting between Paul McCartney and John Lennon
08:53After the Beatles have broken up and Paul makes an impromptu visit to the Dakota building to try and repair his relationship
09:01with John and
09:03It's sort of loosely
09:04I mean the most of what the the conversations that we had were real conversations that they had that were
09:11Sort of pulled together over by the the writer from various sources
09:16but over a much longer period of time, but the the event where they're watching Saturday Night Live and
09:23Lorne Michaels offers them
09:26$7,000 to come and perform because at that time
09:29The they were offered two hundred and fifty million dollars to come and do a one-hour concert
09:37so that what they were trying a lot of people trying to get the Beatles back together and
09:41They were watching
09:43The two of them together at the Dakota building watching Saturday Night Live
09:48Lorne Michaels made the proposition and the two of them went come on. It's just down the road
09:52Let's go down there for a laugh and just show up
09:55Obviously directed by Michael Lindsay Michael Lindsay Hogg. He directed the movie. Let it be he
10:02Essentially invented the music video. So playing John Lennon. Yeah, that's pretty fun thing to do
10:09Yeah, slightly daunting. Yeah, that was
10:13I'd say I was the second best
10:15In heart was the best. He reminded me of my dad at certain points, you know, yeah
10:20Yeah, just that just very funny and funny and he kind of I'd sort of like to stir things up
10:27You know, he'd like to he didn't it wasn't comfortable when things were sort of too
10:34Pleasant and calm, you know, like when the when the other fan comes to them in the cafe
10:39Those are the sorts of things that he would do he would say to them
10:43He'd like to put people on edge knock you off balance. Is it do we know if Paul Ringo saw two of us?
10:50They saw it. It's well, yeah, I do know actually because Aidan Quinn after
10:57we finished shooting he went on a
11:00vacation to some exclusive place and he goes to yoga in the morning and
11:06Stella McCartney's there and because they've come for she's come for a little break and
11:11she recognizes him because he was you know, obviously a big heartthrob and and so she starts chatting to him and
11:18He mentions, you know, I just did this movie based on your dad and she goes over he's here
11:23Do you want to meet him? And then they find out they're actually in the the two chalets right next to each other
11:29So he wrote he wrote a letter to him and then nip by to slip it under the door and actually he slips on the door
11:35She opens the door. She goes. Oh speak of the devil. He's right here. And then yeah, they met each other and
11:41They became mates. I think you know, he pops in and sees them whenever he's in New York
11:45Yeah, he told me he told me this one Christmas
11:49Because he's also friends with Elvis Costello and it was one New Year's Eve or something like this or Christmas
11:56Where Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney came by and they were playing music all night. So I jarred. Yeah, I should have called you up
12:08And one show that I'm pretty sure maybe four years ago
12:12If I'd asked you what you wanted to go to bat for you might pick the terror
12:17I do not believe it is an animal. We battle not a man not a bear
12:23Whether it was our brief or fatigue
12:26I cannot say that some of us became convinced that it continued to track us here back to the ship
12:36It's the ice Georgie
12:38It's only the ice
12:40Yeah, I love the terror. Well, the terror is sort of suddenly got this new life now on Netflix
12:46But it was and then become a kind of a cult classic and it's really good
12:50It's one of my favorite things that I've ever been involved in. Yeah
12:56It was a great cast
12:58Fantastic, you know good solid
13:01brilliant character acting
13:03great actors
13:05We all got along really well
13:07Well, Jared, thank you so much for taking the time to talk about your your career
13:12And congratulations on reawakening. Thank you. It really is a really great film and everyone should go see it soon as it's out
13:19So, thank you very much. Bless you. Thank you