The “unique” role that pushed Harrison Ford in a brand new direction
We all know Harrison Ford as the action-packed Indiana Jones, intergalactic Han Solo and futuristic Rick Deckard of Blade Runner fame, but some lesser-known flicks have seen Ford bend his style and challenge his acting talent somewhat under the radar. The star has etched his name into the Hollywood history books with a collection so bristling with rugged charm you could light a match of his chiselled smile.
However, to categorise Ford as simply one of the charismatic leads of Hollywoof with little else to his name but a beguiling visage is to forget a whole chunk of his career. Lest we forget the likes of Frantic and The Fugitive, but this Hollywood star cites a 2002 Kathryn Bigelow movie as one that threw a bit of a spanner in the works.
We now know Kathryn Bigelow as the first woman to win the Academy Award for ‘Best Director’ with The Hurt Locker in 2008, but her career spans decades before that. With notable works, including Point Break in 1991, Bigelow is a leader in her field and clearly caught Ford’s attention with her 2002 effort.
K-19: The Widowmaker is not a film we hear about often. In fact, many have never heard of it. The Soviet disaster film tells the tale of the USSR’s first nuclear ballistic submarine, which suffered a malfunction in its nuclear reactor on its maiden voyage in the North Atlantic in 1961.
The submarine’s crew, led by the unyielding Captain Alexi Vostrikov (Ford), races against time to prevent a Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster which threatens not only the lives of his crew but has the potential to ignite a world war between the superpowers. The movie has more than a few detractors, but it remains a somewhat potent piece of cinema that relies on the supreme tension created by both the cast and the notion of the truth behind the story.
On K-19, Ford told the BBC: “I got a script from Kathryn Bigelow, and I thought it was a powerful, exciting story and that the character I was being asked to play was intriguing, very different to what I normally get to play.”
Ford also recounts this story’s impact at the time and how it would differ from other American films: “And the film is unique, as far as I know, I can’t remember another American film that tells the story of another culture without American characters in it. So, in many ways, it is an attempt to redress the point of view we held about the Soviet system at that time.”
Ford’s K-19 co-star Liam Neeson also made a foray into the Star Wars universe with The Phantom Menace, so it’s safe to say Bigelow was potentially a fan of both already, and the parallels between action sequences are often uncanny. Although K-19 is now considered a less-than-memorable film, its effect on Ford is clear to see and has seemingly defined his direction of travel through the 21st century – aside from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which very much harks back to earlier days.
