“I didn’t want to make it a cartoon”: the Harrison Ford role Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson couldn’t have pulled off
Not to state the obvious, but any production would love to cast one of the biggest stars in Hollywood in the lead role, and they haven’t come much bigger over the last half a century than Harrison Ford.
Ever since Star Wars first made him a household name in 1977, the actor has steadfastly refused to come down from his position at the very top of the A-list. He only reinforced this by anchoring the Indiana Jones franchise, playing Jack Ryan twice, leading Ridley Scott’s seminal Blade Runner, and telling Gary Oldman’s terrorist to get off his plane in Air Force One.
When a major studio was circling an action-packed blockbuster that was just as much of a drama as it was a thriller, the usual array of suspects was under consideration. Ford was inevitably part of those conversations, but it was the intangible qualities that made him famous, to begin with that ended up convincing the creative team he was the only man for the job.
Tommy Lee Jones may have had the splashier, showier role that ultimately earned him an Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ – which may or may not have been Steven Seagal’s doing depending on how heavily anyone chooses to buy into the aikido master’s tall tales – but The Fugitive wouldn’t have worked anywhere near as well as it did without Ford’s relatable everyman appeal.
During the early stages of development, Alec Baldwin was attached to play Dr. Richard Kimble, while other auditionees included Nick Nolte, Kevin Costner, and Michael Douglas. Fortunately for the film, Ford was more than interested in accepting the part, with executive producer Keith Barish explaining to Rolling Stone why it wasn’t a role to be played by any old big name.
“If you look at the stars at the time, I don’t know who could have pulled it off besides Harrison Ford,” he said. “It would have felt silly to make Tom Cruise a heart surgeon, and it would have turned it into a Tom Cruise movie. Mel Gibson would have made it feel like Lethal Weapon. I didn’t want to make it a cartoon. I wanted to make it a serious action movie with a serious foundation. Harrison Ford just always felt right.”
Casting director Cathy Sandrich was of the exact same mind, describing Ford as “a thinking man’s action hero” who “has such a profound depth of character that just radiates from him”. Cruise and Gibson are no slouches in the acting department, but their most successful films tend to lean into their established personas rather than have them branch out and try something new.
When The Fugitive came within touching distance of $370million at the box office and landed seven Oscar nominations, including ‘Best Picture’, those adamant it was Ford or bust ended up laughing all the way to the bank when one of the finest action thrillers of the 1990s lived up to expectations and then some.
