Kauai Film Commission
Harrison Ford and Anne Heche climb off the plane
that left them stranded on a jungle island in "6 Days/7 Nights."
Harrison Ford
gets it right
Filming '6 Days/7 Nights' on Kauai,
By Tim Ryan
the actor demands nothing less
than perfection from himself
Star-BulletinPAPAA BAY, KAUAI -- All acting, a filmmaker once said, is "waiting around ... for your dynamic turn." Perhaps, but some actors do more than simply contemplate their navels between takes. Take Harrison Ford. Here's a terminally nice guy you would love to find fault with -- some curious kink, idiosyncrasy, aloofness toward co-workers or, better yet, a laissez faire attitude toward the craft.
To be sure, Ford, who this week finishes 10 weeks on Kauai filming the romantic comedy "6 Days/7 Nights," does wait for his "dynamic turn" but does so with seriousness and contemplation.
Ford, 55, is a classic combination of CEO and blue-collar worker, dominating a film set with his presence and polished professionalism, but also exuding a "get it right" work ethic, no matter how long it takes. He demands more from himself than his cohorts.
So there it is! The kink in the armor: Harrison Ford is a perfectionist.
On this night filming at a private estate on the incredibly beautiful -- and private -- Papaa Bay on Kauai's north shore, Ford, at 2 a.m., is still displeased with a scene even after doing it three times. The scene takes place at the fictional Noa Noa Bar in the Tohotua restaurant someplace in the South Seas, with co-star Anne Heche and her on-screen boyfriend, David Schwimmer.
Ford is "tipsy" as he flirts with Heche, falls off the bar stool, then asks if he can buy Schwimmer a drink.
Director Ivan Reitman ("Ghostbusters," "Father's Day," "Space Jam," "Private Parts") likes what he's seen. After the fourth time, Ford walks to the nearby monitor to watch himself. He points to something only he sees on the screen, shoves his stool back, whispers "No!" then returns to the bar to do it again.
"Hey, I like it," Reitman says, over the din of 200 weary cast and crew. "I thought that was beautiful, it works."
Columbia Pictures
Harrison Ford's action heroes are loving family men
as well, even when he's the president of the United States,
as in "Air Force One." The actor says he tries to find
a moral struggle in all his characters.
"Yeah," Ford answers, moving into position to start over. Then he laughs at some inner self-deprecating joke. "Just do it. Get it right.""6 Days/7 Nights" is about a gruff cargo pilot, played by Ford, who hates tourists. Heche plays an acerbic New Yorker on a weeklong dream vacation with Schwimmer. Ford and Heche are the last two people who would want to be stranded on an uninhabited jungle island together -- and neither had planned for the type of romantic adventure that unfolds in the film.
Principal photography on Kauai started July 7, involving about 250 crew members and 300 extras. Nearly $9.3 million was spent.
The $60 million to $100 million film is scheduled for a summer '98 release.
On a bluff a half-mile mauka from the beachfront location, a tent and trailer city glows in the humid, windless night. Generators power lights, fans, air conditioners and cooking equipment. Ford, in jeans and a blue work shirt, stands in line between a reporter and a frightened extra, politely asking someone to pass him the soy sauce.
"Uhhhh, how's it going?" the extra stutters.
"Good so far, but then I haven't started working tonight," Ford says. "How about you?"
A few minutes later the musician Taj Mahal and his seven-member Hula Blues band -- they appear as "The Band" -- arrive wearing gaudy aloha shirts. Ford approaches.
"Thanks very much for being in the film," Ford says. "I'm a big fan of your music."
"And me of you; your films, not your music," Taj, 55, says, laughing. "How's the food?"
When shooting resumes, Heche arrives, wafer thin with startling porcelain skin, blond hair cut short, and wearing an ankle-length white robe and pink slippers. A red anthurium is tucked behind her left ear.
Ford stares ahead, looking at no one, seemingly searching for something, maybe the precise pitch of angst, or growing affection for the Heche character. Then a broad smile sends out laser beams as if to signal, "I'm ready." And director Reitman yells "Action."
Shortly before dawn, Ford, sans the tiny gold hoop he's been sporting lately, sits with a reporter and sips black coffee.
Notoriously careful and thoughtful, and always civil when answering questions, Ford doesn't oversell himself. The humility seems honest, not a pose. As reticent as he has always been to reveal his private self, he is just as guarded in assessing the merits of his public one.
"I see (acting) as a day's work," he says. "Each of us goes to work each day, and if we can live out our ambition of making that the best day, then great. The only difference is that my day goes to the lab and comes back and is around forever ..."
Satisfaction, he says, comes from each day of exercising the skills acquired over the years.
Still, Ford is fed up with some aspects of his trade.
"I am so bored with this celebrity obsession and the (entertainment) business. It's a real disadvantage to the process of what we try to do in filmmaking.
"The interest in (how much a film earns) and how much they cost and how much actors get paid doesn't help the profession of acting. It interferes, it sidetracks, it deviates from the intent of what we try very hard to do."
Ford is humbled by the magic he's captured -- he says it's related to his search for a moral struggle for each of his characters to wage. He seeks out moral substance, debates with writers and directors to infuse their work with it if he finds it lacking. And then deflects the praise.
"I don't think you get any special credit for doing what interests you," Ford says. "It's what interests me and I do it over and over again because it's simply what most engages me. It's also what I think, on a commercial level, sustains me."
Do interviewers ever learn anything about the real Harrison Ford?"
"Hopefully not!" he says. "You all know who I am after 25 years of making films. I'm just the guy up there on the screen. I've answered all the questions ... in the best way I can. And the personal questions are none of anybody's business."
While on Kauai Ford has been flying his Cessna 206, which he had shipped from his ranch in Montana.
"I like the view of the world you get from a single-engine airplane. It's a way of looking at the world that I never had before.
"Learning to fly for me was about learning new skills, which I enjoy doing from time to time. I like to take responsibility for myself."
