“That is not true”: the iconic movie Ed Harris wants you to know he definitely wasn’t in
Character actors stand a better chance of populating their career with iconic movies, for the simple reason that the likelihood of playing a supporting role in an iconic picture is much greater than landing multiple leading roles in them, and Ed Harris has been in a few.
From The Truman Show and Apollo 13 to The Rock and Glengarry Glen Ross, via Nixon and The Abyss, Harris has become one of the most dependable supporting players in the business, and even when he’s clearly only there for the paycheque, his natural gravitas makes it impossible for him to phone it in.
Since the 1980s, he’s cornered the market on stern, gruff authority figures, and while succeeding at such a niche archetype theoretically opens the door to typecasting, Harris is simply too good to be pigeonholed, even if it’s much easier for an audience to buy him as a villain than a conventional hero.
The four-time Academy Award nominee and two-time Golden Globe winner has one of Hollywood’s most distinctive voices, and most people who’ve seen at least a handful of movies in their time would be able to instantly recognise Harris’ dulcet tones without having to open their eyes.
However, there was one occasion where everybody assumed they were hearing their voice and ran with it. As a result, Harris has been erroneously credited with yet another iconic movie to add to his collection, which would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that he had absolutely nothing to do with it.
For whatever reason, somebody somewhere decided one day that the voice insisting, “If you build it, he will come,” to Kevin Costner’s Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams was Harris, which probably gained a great deal of its traction because his wife, Amy Madigan, was the sports drama’s female lead, and it wouldn’t have been too difficult to imagine her asking her spouse for a favour.
The identity of the offscreen character known only as ‘The Voice’ wasn’t revealed in the build-up to the movie’s release, or in its aftermath, and since nobody could come up with any better or more feasible options, it was awarded to Harris by default. Some actors would be fine with that, but not him.
“That is not true,” he confirmed, putting the speculation to bed once and for all. “You can put that rumour to rest.” If it’s not him, then who is it? Other suspects have included Costner and co-star Ray Liotta, but more than three and a half decades after its release, director Phil Alden Robinson is still refusing to give the game away.
“We’ll let that remain a secret,” the filmmaker teased. “It’s a great mystery, and I like that.” Well, we definitely know that it’s not Ed Harris, unless he’s lying to cover his tracks, and at this rate, the identity of the actor who spoke Field of Dreams‘ most memorable line may never be revealed.
