Toronto, Los Angeles, London, Los Angeles, Miami,
London…
These last few months have been an incredibly busy
time for Jared Harris. His list of
projects in the last year is almost half as long as his incredible resume. You could honestly say he’s been nonstop
since 2008. From TV work on The Riches,
Mad Men and Fringe, to movies like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, and Lincoln, then on to play Hodge
Starkweather in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. Since wrapping on City of Bones he’s spent
time in recording booths and covered in ashes for upcoming projects like The
Boxtrolls, Pompeii, and The Quiet Ones. And don’t forget getting engaged to his
longtime (and adorable and awesome, but I am biased) fiancee Allegra Riggio,
who kindly let him out of some wedding planning duties to sit down
and talk to us for an exclusive interview.
I got an incredible hour long phone interview with
Jared a few weeks ago, right before my surgery, and I am so glad to finally get
to share it. I feel very honored to speak with someone with such an incredible talent and body of work. It was truly an amazing experience. At some point I would love to figure out how
to edit the audio properly so that I may share how absolutely charming Jared is
to speak to. Without further delay, here
is Jared!
Institute
(Sarah): We would like to welcome Jared Harris! Thank you
very much for your time!
Jared
Harris: Thank you for asking me.
 | |
| Jared Harris as Hodge Starkweather in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones |
Institute:
You play the very important role of Hodge Starkweather in The
Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. How did you come into the role?
Jared
Harris: I got a call to come and meet Harald at the
Constantin offices in Los Angles, and we sat down and we chatted. I wasn’t
aware of the books at that point. He told me about the story and the world it
was in and everything and it sounded like great fun. It was one of those sort
of check for interest type things. They didn’t offer it to me right away. And
then once I knew they wanted me I went and immersed myself in the world, and
loved it.
Institute:
So,
City of Ashes is up next. Have you read City of Ashes and/or City of Glass to
see Hodge’s full story?
Jared
Harris: I read the first book because that is what the movie
was, and I knew that they weren’t going to be pulling stuff from the other
books into the first movie. I read that
first book several times to understand it and to understand my part and my
function in the story. What happens quite often with these things is when you
get the script it is still in flux and when you go and meet the film maker’s there’s
normally a read through and things can change and things always have to adjust
on set. You need to have all that information ready so that you can make the
right adjustment when you are on set. The first scene of Hodge went through a
couple of rewrites right before we started shooting. They rely on you to have
an opinion, and the only way one can have an opinion is to be really familiar
with the source material. You have to honor the mythology, so any changes and
ideas you have must be consistent with the mythology. I haven’t read the other books. I just focused on this
because this is what they hired me to do. I read the first book many many
times. I’m very excited to hear he’s in the third. I knew he wasn’t in the
second book. That is one of the things I
learned from the Mad Men set since you never got the whole season and you
weren’t told what was going to happen you got it episode by episode. One of the
habits actors can have is to play the end. Once you know where the story is
going you start playing the end. Not knowing what that was is in a way very
helpful. I only read that book but I became very possessive of the mythology in
that first book. Hodge is used as a way of explaining the word that we are in,
so I was very possessive of making sure I explained it in a way that was
completely consistent with the mythology of the book. The tricky thing about that is you only have
90 seconds of screen time to do it. How
to concisely convey what these worlds were, what the ideas were, what they
mythology was. I love that part of it. That is Hodge’s role in the books as well,
passing along the mythology to the younger generation.
Institute:
In the books Hodge doesn’t make an appearance in City of Ashes but does in City
of Glass. Have they contracted you yet
for CoG?
Jared
Harris: They have not. That is way in the future and it isn’t
a deal an agent would make at this point, they would say come back to us when
you are ready to make the third one. The film business is a very fickle
business, so they are planning on making all of them, but obviously that
depends on how well the first one does. They are very excited about it, I know they’ve
written the script for the second one and are in pre-production for it. The
script was floating around the set of Pompeii, a set I just finished working on
in Toronto for Constantin. They were all talking about and very excited about
it.
Institute:
Could you explain a little about the look of Hodge.
Jared
Harris: He’s explained as having gray hair in the books, but
it’s like the color has been drained out of him. He was part of that whole
group from the past. The idea is that he was older than those guys, one of the
oldest members of that class. It was part of the idea of this curse was that it
sort of been draining the life out of him. Then that was also part of the idea of the
mustache and that look is that he seems like he is from a different generation,
plus all the people I’m on screen with are incredibly young and very beautiful
and it obviously makes the age gap starker.
Institute:
People have been super excited to see Hodge and feel the look is spot on.
Jared
Harris: That’s good! Good!
Institute:
Most fans didn’t really have a “fancast” of Hodge, most seem to agree we didn’t
know you were it, but you totally are “it,” if that makes sense, *laughs*
Jared
Harris: My thing has always been to appear different in
everything that I’ve done. For it to be hard…you don’t have that baggage of
being better known than the roles that you play. You bring all of that baggage
with you to every role that you play, and then it starts to become difficult
for people to accept you as a character. It’s part of the tradeoff you have to
make, you have to walk a fine line with. The better known you are, the more
work comes to you in a sense, but it also makes it difficult to do the work you
sometimes want to do because you bring all that baggage with you.
Institute:
We saw that in fan reactions, a lot of “oh my God yeah I loved him in ….”
Resident Evil/Sherlock/Mad Men etc. A lot of people see you and there’s that
realization “He’s THAT GUY” so you have been very successful with that. You
really do make a very different impression in everything that you do. You are
more of a character than a typecast.
Jared
Harris: Sure, that’s the idea. You want the character to be
the thing that people encounter. You don’t want them to encounter your story or
mythology. It works for some people doing that. I would say that every time you
see Charlie Sheen in something you are seeing Charlie Sheen and you are aware
of his story. He’s very very funny and it works for him, but you know if you
want to do a lot of character work it can get in the way. His personal story
might get in the way. Personally, I always try and deliver the character. That
is what I enjoy doing, morphing yourself into someone completely different.
Institute:
You mentioned working with the younger cast. What was it like? Was there any
mentoring of the younger cast members by you more experienced ones?
Jared
Harris: You know, the thing about the younger actors is
they’ve been acting sense they were seven practically, most of these guys. They
have a lot of experience, so there was no mentoring. They are extremely
professional they know what they want to do and they know how to do it. So, no
would be the answer to that one. *laughs*
Institute:
Did
you get to interact with Cassie?
Jared
Harris: She came to set one of the days I was there. She was
there a lot. She was busy writing the new book. I got to meet her on one of her
set visits. She was great. We took some photographs together. We took a picture
of our hands. One of the things that was great is I got my own personal rune
symbol from her. She was very specific in terms of the runes that you would
have visible on your body. She would send those notes to the makeup department.
I got some very specific ones which I was very proud of. I have a pendant with
one. Everyone got one with a specific
image that was for each of the characters.
She was really hands on. We got to have fun with the weapons because
everyone had a specific weapon that had specific things about them. Harald was really into Hodge. His imagination
was really excited by Hodge and how Hodge fit into the mythology and everything
and how he could use that character. He designed these weapons that Hodge would
use, which we had some fun with. Hodge has a specific weapon which he became an
expert in. it has particular attributes, things that the weapons do that other
weapons can’t do.
Institute:
If you had to choose for Hodge to have a parabati, who would it be?
Jared
Harris: *silence*
Institute:
I have stumped Jared Harris. *laughs*
Jared
Harris: Well, I’m just thinking. Isabelle is pretty lethal
with her whip. And she wields it really well in the movie. We saw the movie a
couple of weeks ago. Let’s see. I don’t know. I am stumped on that one. I like
the idea that people have these certain weapon skills. I would imagine that if
you were partnered up with somebody you would want someone who’s complementing
what you have.
Institute: As you said, you got to screen the movie, what can you tell us? Did you have a favorite
scene?
Jared
Harris: Other than my scenes darling? *laughs* Spoken like
an actor. I don’t want to give anything away. I don’t know what one can say, in
terms of giving away too much of the movie. They’ve done a great job. It’s difficult when you take a book that is
that dense, that has that much story and condense it down to a two hour movie,
what do you leave out, what do you put in? Sometimes things that worked in the
book won’t work in the movie because you just don’t have as much time to tell.
They’ve done a really great job with adapting the story to a movie format. They
are very careful with those words that they have introduced into the story in
terms of which ones they are going to use because they are explained in the
story. Otherwise will you have to use
two minutes of film time explaining what that word meant. They have a limited
amount of time to tell the story. What they’ve done with this, which I think
has worked really well, is set up the idea of the world, set up the mythology
and they’ve left themselves a great platform in which they can introduce a lot
of the ideas and more outlandish stuff in the further movies. One of the things they were very careful
about, and Harald talked about was this film HAS to be grounded in reality. It
has to feel like a real world. And in that sense they didn’t’ want to do lots
of special effects and blue screens and stuff like that. Sets had to be real
sets like you were living in a proper
world. They wanted the effects and stunts, as much as possible, to be
practically done rather than digitally done so that you felt that this world
was a real world. Some of these ideas are really outlandish, and if you have
that, which this film successfully does, this is opening the door to that other
world. It teases people with the
possibility of what this all could be.
Institute:
So it leaves you wanting more?
Jared
Harris: Exactly. Like in the book it explains that the
demons are these inter dimensional beings. In this movie a lot of those answers
are not given yet. It opens up the
possibility of all these things that this world can present.
Institute:
We know that your father, Richard Harris, was a wonderful actor and charmed a
younger generation of book readers as Albus Dumbledore in the early Harry
Potter movies. How do you feel about The Mortal Instruments role in continuing
this trend of bringing such magical and mysterious characters and new worlds to
a younger generation?
Jared
Harris: I haven’t thought of it as being some extraordinary
coincidence. It is part of what the
trend is in film making at the moment, so it is not a surprise. This particular
type of genre, the idea of these fantastical worlds, they lend themselves to
big budget movies with the special effects, the sort of you jump out of your
seat excitement studios want to go after. They are interested in developing a
series of titles rather than one movie because they spend all this money
educating the public about this property that they have and if it works the
first time they don’t have to educate the public for the second one, or the
third or fourth or fifth or sixth or seventh because the public is already
aware and interested in seeing the next version of it. It’s just part of the
trend that is happening in studio film making. I will be surprised if it’s the
last one I do. I would think that there are others ones that one would get
involved in.
Institute:
Your body of work is so huge, and when we were coming up with question we had a
hard time focusing on one thing. Amber’s daughter Brianna has a Resident Evil
question for you. In RE, when you became a zombie you still couldn’t walk?
 |
| Jared Harris as Dr. Ashford in Resident Evil:Apocalypse |
Jared
Harris: Why couldn’t I walk (he finishes the question with
me). Yes. It was kinda one of those things that, we thought about that, would I
be able to walk? I said I wanted to be a zombie in a wheel chair, and not
actually come out of the wheel chair and still be operating the wheel chair,
but they said no, that’s going to get a laugh. And then we thought if I could
suddenly start walking that would get a laugh. It was really to do with the
moment, where it came in the story, as to what determines what I was able to do
at that point. Technically speaking, whatever the regenerative process is of
the T virus, it hadn’t been able to restore what had been damaged for so
long. At that point you are free to make
up anything you want really. This is
actually a good example. The answer is
not to do with the specific mythology. The point was that it might elicit a
laugh or the wrong response at that point. So they went with the one that would
maintain the state that they were trying keep at that point in terms of where
the audience was.
Institute:
So, you have a LOT of projects coming up. I’ve heard that you’ve always wanted
to do voice work. How has it been doing
The Boxtrolls?
Jared
Harris: I’m still working on that! It’s great fun! We
actually had a really really good day of recording before we left Los Angeles.
You can overact your heart out. And it’s great great great fun. I love it. The
tough thing is it’s been done over such a long period of time; we’ve been
recording for well over a year now. Maintaining a consistency can be difficult
because ones ideas of the character begin to evolve and it doesn’t match what
one recorded 14 and 118 months ago. I love it, it’s great great fun and really
silly.
Institute:
Have you recorded with Simon Pegg?
Jared
Harris: I’ve recorded with Elle Fanning, but not the rest of
those guys. They try and do that but it is quite difficult with schedules. They
normally just bring you in there and you record your lines of dialog and lots
of other silly little things as well. Little sounds and shrieks and pants and
gasps and squeals of outrage. It’s really silly and great fun. I saw a little
piece of it and it just looks amazing. I was so excited.
Institute:
I saw a first look the other day.
Jared
Harris: They have a little teaser on the internet. It isn’t a scene from the film, it’s just the
characters. It’s amazing work they do. They took me around their factory in
Portland. It’s an amazing facility they have up there. Huge. When I was up
there they were just at the tail end of Paranorman, and I got to walk on the
main street after the witch had wreaked havoc on it. It was just fantastic, the
detail was amazing. So beautiful. And this whole 3D printing thing they do is
just mind blowing. The huge staff they have creating the costumes, painting the
puppets, all of the facial features that are interchangeable. Painstaking work
and beautifully crafted. Amazing.
Institute:
So would you like to do more voice work in the future?
Jared
Harris: Yeah, I would love it.
Institute:
If you had to choose…I know you started in theater. There are huge differences
between doing theater, film, television, voice work. Is there one that you
prefer over the others?
Jared
Harris: They each have their different advantages, and
different setbacks. I love live performance. I loved doing theater, and would
be really happy to do it again. What I don’t like about it is the entire
process is geared towards getting the approval of one writer from the New York
Times or a few writers from whatever papers there are in London. For me that
just seems like a pointless exercise. And the idea that the financial people
will pull the plug on it if the writer from the New York Times didn’t like it.
Maybe he had a bad meal and had gas or something and he just wants to get out of
the theater that night. I don’t really
care about one person’s opinion that much. But I would love to do, be happy to
do it up in Oregon or where ever. Just having the opportunity to just make
contact with the audience.
Institute:
I’ve heard working in TV can be really rough.
Jared
Harris: Long hours. Very long hours. But at the moment I
would say the writing on television is superior to any of the writing you are
seeing being done in any of the major movie studios right now. Really really
exciting subjects and tackling them in interesting and original ways. That is
what you have on the plus side is the material is really good. They are taking
risks. And I would say probably are probably steering the material to an adult
audience because adults still watch television, you know?
Institute:
It’s a battle. So many good shows and the DVR can only hold so much. Thankfully
we have Netflix.
Jared
Harris: Yeah, that is really the only way to do it is to go
to the beginning and watch those shows straight through.
Institute:
I’ve been wanting to do that with Mad Men. We missed the beginning and then it
didn’t replay anywhere, I am glad it is getting easier to do that.
Jared
Harris: Yeah, I had that experience with The Wire. At that
time Netflix and those things didn’t exist. I managed to get a hold of them all
on DVD and got to sit down and watch them and what an amazing show that was.
Institute:
What is your can’t miss TV show? Do you have a favorite right now?
Jared
Harris: We love watching Big Bang Theory. Huge fans of that.
We are both science nerds. We love science fiction. I guess that makes us science
fiction nerds not science nerds. Let’s see, I’m into The Newsroom at the moment. “Mad Men!” *Allegra hollers in the
background* yes of course, Mad Men. Game of Thrones, I love it. Allegra is a
big fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race. We just started getting into Magic City; my
younger brother has a good character arc on this second season. He’s really
good in it. We haven’t been home for such a long time; we haven’t been able to
keep up with it. It’s very difficult to keep up with those shows if you are on
the road. *Allegra in the back ground *
“But he’s figured out how to watch Game of Thrones.”
Institute:
I
love this quote of yours “I've auditioned for normal characters. But I never
get cast.”
Jared
Harris: *laughs* Yeah.
Institute:
Do
you have a favorite character you’ve played?
Jared
Harris: The latest one would be, I loved playing Ulysses
Grant. I really learned so much about the guy. It’s a story that has not yet
been told. It’s a great American story, and he hasn’t had the biopic treatment.
In a way his story is too big to do in one movie. It would be a great 10-parter or something
like that. What an amazing life he had? And I really really connected to
him. My favorite one is always my next
job. That is my standard answer.
Institute: Thank you so much for your time! We really
appreciate it.
Jared
Harris: You are very welcome!
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