Interview excerpt from Mr. Showbiz
By Jenny Peters
July 1997

I've heard that this was a very enjoyable shoot for you.
Air Force Fun, we called it. And it was, each day. We had no weather problems. We had no sets that weren't ready, we had no problems whatsoever. It was twenty minutes from my Los Angeles house, and we got every day's work done easily and comfortably, and it was great fun. I loved working with Gary Oldman, loved working with the other actors involved.

And you loved this even though you got the crap beat out of you every day?
Every day. Well, not every day. Some days, they didn't get around to me. They were beating the shit out of each other on those days.

Would you say that this is the most physical role you've ever played?

Oh, no. I mean, I didn't think about it. I guess there are many physical moments, but there are a lot more moments of tension and suspense. I haven't assayed the physical component of this particular film compared to others. A lot of films I do are physical, and a lot aren't.

Has all the fighting you've done on-screen over the years begun to wear on you at all?
No, no, no. It's all choreographed, it's all plotted out. The fun of it, for me, is that it's like an athletic endeavor. You choreograph it, you set your mind on what it is. you don't want to hurt somebody, you want to be very sure of your moves, and so it's a pleasure to perform those things for me. I enjoy it. It's like playing tennis, or ballet dancing or something like that.

Did you get hurt at all during the Air Force One shoot? I remember hearing about a black eye or something.
I don't remember anything substantial. I think I might have gotten a little rotator cuff tear, but that's about it. I mean, if I didn't tear a ligament or something, I don't really remember. Bruises and that sort of stuff, I don't worry about that.

As you get older, how do you stay in shape to keep doing these physical roles?
I don't do much. I play tennis. I play an hour of tennis five, six days a week. I play with a pro-l don't play social tennisZand I really work hard, and that's about all l do. I haven't worked out for years. I used to work out, but I got bored with it. Also, I'm pretty careful about what I eat-but I'm not obsessed. And I'm lucky genetically, I guess.

Was it a conscious effort on your part to do these high-profile action pictures like Air Force One and then change it up and do other kinds of movies?
Yeah, always. I always thought it was a good idea to demonstrate a viability in a number of different things, in a number of different genres. Trying to disabuse people of any given notion they had of you at any given point in time by comparing and contrasting in your next outing.

Did the worry of typecasting ever come into your consideration?
No, typecasting was never an issue for me because I never allowed myself to be typecast. Right now I have the opportunity to do any kind of role, because I have a degree of commercial viability. I've always used that in order to do what I wanted to do. That to me was critical, to avoid being typed as one kind or another. I'm still doing that. I'm going from an action film to a romantic comedy.

Could Harrison Ford ever play the bad guy? Yeah. Why not? The him would have to wrestle with how it was going to do that, and it might be too much of a burden on the him. To simply step into the bad-guy part might be too much of a strain on the film. It might draw too much attention to that part, it might draw too much attention to me, in that part, and unbalance the film or the story. And most stories that have a good guy and a bad guy do a better job of allaying the engine of the movie with the good guy than they do with the bad guy, and that's where I like to work I like to work with the whole fabric, not just in the embroidery.

I also heard you spent some time with President Clinton, learning a bit about the Presidency firsthand.
Au contraire. No, no, no. I didn't spend time with the President gleaning the atmosphere. No. The only time I've spent with the President has been purely privately social. I did not use the President for research.

You must have observed a few things about him.
Well, yes, but that's easy enough to observe on television or in any other circumstance. I mean, you don't need to be proximate to the President to glean that. I really did not use President Clinton either for inspiration or detail. There was a story that circulated somewhere that I had invited the President, that I had spent time with the President and discussed this part with him. Not at all. I'm much more interested in his story and what's going on with him. It reallynever occurred to me to ask him anything about this, nor did I think that would be a responsible use of his time.

Are you satisfied with Harrison Ford as the President?
I think so, yeah. The most important part of the film, for me, in the expression of the particularity of this president, was in that speech that he gives in the beginning of the film, and I was very concerned about how we framed that language-the rhythm and the meter of that language. The very precision of that language was critical, and the fact of the President's taking responsibility for a failure to perform was very important. The rest of it I thought came from the deference that people pay the President. There is no, I think, particular presidential behavior. So I wasn't anxious to know how Bill Clinton might play this part. I was anxious to figure out how I might play this part and use my own experience and my own emotional reserve to give expression to the ideas of this character and the ideas of this story.

Can you explain exactly what attracted you to this role?
Well, when I read the material I saw in my mind's eye a film that was enormously entertaining and that had a real emotional core to it. I could relate to the emotional dilemma of the character, and I could also relate to the moral question that was being raised and answered. I think that's a very important component. I think it dignifies the whole enterprise of filmmaking, when you give it reference to something important in people's lives. There's two ways of doing it. you can co-opt an issue that's real and important and then you can give a movie solution to that problem. I think in this case, we don't offer a solution; we just offer a resolution of the conflict that we're seeing. But we don't attempt to give historic perspective for the future. But those are the reasons that I chose it. I thought that it would be a damn good summer movie! And I thought I could do an adequate job of giving the character emotional expression.

So how was it swinging from one plane to another?
[Laughs.] Swinging from one plane to another? Through the great blue screen? It's always fun to do that kind of stuff, with wires and things.

As much fun as flying your own plane or riding a motorcycle?
No, not as much fun as either of those.