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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
the Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what

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you here Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. Do you know him as Lane Price

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in Mad Men? Also as David
Jones Hey Hey, We're the Monkeys No

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in Fringe, and King George the
Sixth in the historical drama Crown. Jared

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Harris also has the honor of being
Richard Harris's son, and he's here to

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talk about a new documentary that's out
now called Ghosts of Richard Harris. Jared,

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it's delightful to have you here today. Thank you, thank you for

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having me. So let's start with
Richard Harris as a dad. Was he

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the type of dad that would play
skittles or cricket with you, or maybe

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a game of checkers? Yeah,
he was very competitive checkers. Yeah.

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No, he was great fun.
You know, for example, way to

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come the long flights from London to
his house he had in the Bahamas,

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and you know, we'd arrive at
the house and he'd been cooped up in

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a plane, and of course we're
kids and you want to do that age,

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just kick a football around. So
we start kicking the football around in

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the living room and he didn't mind
when we broke something. You know,

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if there were things in there,
he really didn't like it. I'll give

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you twenty bucks if you'll break that
VARs for the header or his double if

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you do it with a header.
So yeah, he was great fun.

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I mean, you know, he
loved there's an anarchy that children have and

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he for a while he would thrive
on that anarchy. And when he'd had

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enough, he wouldn't tell you to
stop. He'd remove himself from it and

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sit up in his room and read
books. I imagine because he came from

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a big family as well, he
was used to a lot of a lot

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of activity in the household. Yeah, that's true, that sense. You

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just I didn't realize that you're quite
right, And then that sense, it

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was probably a very comfortable familiarity for
him, that kind of energy in the

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house that he could hear but not
you know. Yeah, it's like having

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the TV on. In fact,
again, that was something that he would

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do. He'd leave the TV on
really loud, so you'd have to yell

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over it. Not that he was
hard of hearing. I just think he'd

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liked the idea of people yelling at
each other, but not having an actual

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argument. The Ghost of Richard Harris. It is out now and it is

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a documentary of the actor. We're
talking to his son, Jared Francis Harris

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right now. How many of them
were you? How many of your siblings?

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Did you have three? Two brothers? So there's three brothers altogether,

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So two siblings. So it wasn't
the nine or ten that he was raised

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around. No, God give my
mom a break, because I mean three

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boys was enough. I think he
were handful, you know, we're real

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handful. He was very skilled and
very dedicated to his roles. It seems

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to me he always wanted to go
into a role with a with a good

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solid attitude of what the character was, whether it was King Arthur or or

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a man called Horse or any of
those others. Did he do anything in

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particular to get ready for those roles
that you noticed as a child. Yeah,

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he took his work very, very
seriously. I enjoyed it, you

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know, he really enjoyed it.
He didn't start walking around the house,

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as you know, waving a wander
around when he was playing Dumbledore or anything

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like that. But I mean he
research and that's one of the things that

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was a pleasure that when we went
through his archive and you find that there's

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his copious notes have been written about
the various roles, and um, you

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know, he did his homework.
He took his work very seriously. Jarry

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Harris is with us. Who's the
son of Richard Harris? The Ghost of

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Richard Harris is the documentary that is
out now. And I don't know that

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a lot of people realized the musical
side of Richard Harris was he was he

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particularly musical around the house. Oh
god, he would never stopped singing.

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He loved Frank Sinatra. He's seeing
Frank Sinatra songs all the time. Um

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yeah, I mean he had a
huge career as a singer. I mean

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I see him on and that's you
know that part of his career has has

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faded from public memory, if you
like, and it's a surprise to people.

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And then a lot of the actors
have tried to do that thing where

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you have the career as an actor
hand as a singer, you know the

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hyphen it and and in his I
think I doubt anyone's done it more successfully

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than him. So um, he
he he loves to sing. I mean,

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he loved the sound of his own
well, a lot of the artists

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go from being a musician to an
actor. It's not often you see them

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go the other way. One of
the other way. Yeah. One of

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the connections that he has to Oklahoma
is the writer Jimmy Webb, composer of

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MacArthur Park, his number one hit. And I'm curious as to how he

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came across that song and decided,
yeah, I want to record that.

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So it's actually done within the documentary, Jimmy and Dad is doing a fundraising

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event, so anti war, anti
Yatnam war protests or he's out in Los

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Angeles and he's got a lot of
people who are volunteering to be part of

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it, and I think someone puts
him onto Jimmy Webb, so he asked

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Jimmy had to come and do it, and and Jimmy, I think Jimmy

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approaches Da says we should record something
in this video together. And Jimmy had

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written this for a different band.
I don't remember who the name of the

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band. He'd written it for a
different group. And as he's going through

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all of his songs with him,
there's a sort of great big tone and

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he goes, well, this isn't
right for you, it's for somebody else.

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But of course that you couldn't have
said something that would make him more

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interested. And he says, well, what is it? I want to

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hear it, and he plays it
and he goes, I love it,

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I want to do it, And
it could have been very smart reverse psychology

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on Jimmy Webb's part. I don't
know, but yeah, you know he's

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just said, I mean I can
see what attracted into it as well,

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because it's an ethic song. Well, it's more of an aria, if

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you ask me, an operetic aria. Yeah, and it was also something

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that nobody was doing at that time, in the sense that the idea that

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you can have a song that long
and any possibility of it getting any airplay

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is impossible. So those are the
kind of impossible challenges that he loves.

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Well, the funny story I couldn't
do something. That's when he would decide,

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you know how with you, I'm
going to do it. Funny story

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about Jimmy Webb. I've had him
on the program a number of times,

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and that's the one thing you're not
allowed to ask him. The origins and

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inspiration from MacArthur Park. Really,
yes, he doesn't want to talk about

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it. That's weird. I'm surprised
Jared, Jared Harris is with us.

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He is Richard Harris's son. The
documentary of the Oscar nominated actor, including

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interviews with Jared and Damien and Jamie, his brothers, Russell Crowe. What's

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the connection with Russell Crowe Gladiator?
Oh? Yes, of course, of

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course, somebody, somebody revoke my
pop culture license. But Jared Harris,

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we thank you for sharing the documentary
with us and for joining us today yesterday,

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okay, let's see. Thanks for
listening to Later with Lee Matthews,

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the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember
to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons

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from five to seven and iHeartMedia presentation