Word: forde
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Shortly after the picture begins, it depicts a brutal murder in the Philadelphia train station. The crime is witnessed by an Amish boy (Lukas Haas) who is traveling with his newly widowed mother (Kelly McGillis). Ford plays John Book, the Philadelphia detective who investigates, only to discover, with the boy's help, that the murder was committed by high members of his own department who have become involved in the drug trade. The hunter becomes the hunted, and Book, wounded, is forced to seek refuge with the boy and his mother among the Amish, the Pennsylvania Dutch folk who live...
...Ford's best roles yet, allowing him greater scope than Han Solo in Star Wars or Indiana Jones or the hot rodder he portrayed in American Grafitti or the chilling Army officer in Apocalypse Now. But he is right when he says that John Book is not a stretch from his other characters: it is an extension. Some people, he complains, say, " 'Well, Witness is really acting. It's great you're getting a chance to play a real person.' " In fact, he says, with some asperity, "my ambition was to play real people in Star Wars and Raiders. Doing...
...same can be said about Ford. Han Solo, that interstellar swashbuckler, is brash and egotistical; Indiana Jones, with his whip and wide-brimmed hat, is a dashing romantic; John Book is, in the end, sensitive and compassionate. All three characters are believably different, but all three are also brothers. All share that quarter-inch, side-of-the-mouth smile that follows a sardonic one-liner, and all are based on the rock-hard actor underneath. "The roles get lost in Harrison," says Carrie Fisher, the Princess Leia of the Star Wars series. "I don't think that there...
...hard to imagine Ford's being convincing as a creep or a cretin or even an ordinary villain, and his career has followed the dutiful, almost square path one would expect from the characters he projects. When he saw that he was not receiving the kinds of parts he wanted back in the '60s, he did what the forthright, somewhat self-righteous John Book would have done. Rather than fritter away his talent as a bit actor on TV car-chase shows, he all but dropped out for seven years, turning down 90% of the jobs he was offered. With...
...were building a house, or raising a barn, as he helps to do in Witness. "I'm a technical actor, and my approach to both jobs is almost totally technical," he explains. "There's no magic involved, only work and circumstance." Ridley Scott, who directed Ford in the 1982 sci-fi thriller Blade Runner, observes that, like a good carpenter, Ford is obsessive about small things. "After going over the story line, he'll turn to the details," says Scott. "He wants to know not only what the character looks like but what he'd wear, right down...