He’s getting ready to turn 59 next week, and has spent more than half his life as a stage and screen actor. And during an impressive career in which he’s played the good (The Right Stuff), the bad (Pollock) and the hideously ugly (A History of Violence), four-time Academy Award nominee Ed Harris has no regrets.
Unless you count the time he said no to Stanley Kubrick. In doing so, it might have cost him his best chance to win that coveted Golden Boy.
The recipient of the 2009 Mayor's Career Achievement Award for Acting at the 32nd Starz Denver Film Festival on November 13 was reluctant to reveal many juicy details about himself or his fellow actors during “An Evening With Ed Harris” at the King Center.
Yet throughout an interview and Q&A that followed a 30-minute highlight reel of some of his formidable performances, Harris was surprisingly chatty for a guy who rarely appears on the talk show circuit.
Robert Knott, his friend, occasional co-writer (Appaloosa) and fellow actor (Pollock) was the interviewer during this onstage conversation, but had little work to do as Harris covered many significant aspects and defining moments of his life.
It took a question from the audience, though, to get the star to spill the beans about The One He Let Get Away.
Not that Harris seemed to mind that he passed up the chance to play that rotten-to-the-Corps senior drill instructor, Gunnery Sgt. Hartman, in Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. In fact, Harris needed Knott to refresh his memory when he was asked if there was a role he turned down that he regretted.
“I don’t really regret turning it down, but it’s notable. You remember, I think the fella won an Oscar for it,” Harris said, struggling to come up with the answer. “Uh ... Oh God!”
After briefly (and privately) conferring with Knott, Harris returned to his seat. “You remember Full Metal Jacket,” he said. “The Stanley Kubrick picture. Stanley Kubrick wanted me to play that sergeant fellow, who was played by a real Army guy (R. Lee Ermey). I don’t remember what was going on with me at that time, I think I’d just finished something, but I said no to him. I remember I was sitting in our kitchen. He called me on the phone.
Article comments
1 - El Bicho
Great piece but unless I missed it your title is off because it's never revealed why
2 - Michael
Thanks, Gordon. Maybe the title wasn't meant to be taken literally, but the fact that he turned down the chance to play the part seemed like a reason why the "Jacket" didn't fit, figuratively speaking. Why did he turn down the role? I'm not sure even Ed Harris knows that today. If he does, he's not saying for public consumption.
3 - mon
I am not a fan of Ed Harris's films. So I was confused at the first glance of the title.