This is Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what
you here Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. Do you know him as Lane Price
in Mad Men? Also as David Jones Hey Hey, We're the Monkeys No
in Fringe, and King George the Sixth in the historical drama Crown. Jared
Harris also has the honor of being Richard Harris's son, and he's here to
talk about a new documentary that's out now called Ghosts of Richard Harris. Jared,
it's delightful to have you here today. Thank you, thank you for
having me. So let's start with Richard Harris as a dad. Was he
the type of dad that would play skittles or cricket with you, or maybe
a game of checkers? Yeah, he was very competitive checkers. Yeah.
No, he was great fun. You know, for example, way to
come the long flights from London to his house he had in the Bahamas,
and you know, we'd arrive at the house and he'd been cooped up in
a plane, and of course we're kids and you want to do that age,
just kick a football around. So we start kicking the football around in
the living room and he didn't mind when we broke something. You know,
if there were things in there, he really didn't like it. I'll give
you twenty bucks if you'll break that VARs for the header or his double if
you do it with a header. So yeah, he was great fun.
I mean, you know, he loved there's an anarchy that children have and
he for a while he would thrive on that anarchy. And when he'd had
enough, he wouldn't tell you to stop. He'd remove himself from it and
sit up in his room and read books. I imagine because he came from
a big family as well, he was used to a lot of a lot
of activity in the household. Yeah, that's true, that sense. You
just I didn't realize that you're quite right, And then that sense, it
was probably a very comfortable familiarity for him, that kind of energy in the
house that he could hear but not you know. Yeah, it's like having
the TV on. In fact, again, that was something that he would
do. He'd leave the TV on really loud, so you'd have to yell
over it. Not that he was hard of hearing. I just think he'd
liked the idea of people yelling at each other, but not having an actual
argument. The Ghost of Richard Harris. It is out now and it is
a documentary of the actor. We're talking to his son, Jared Francis Harris
right now. How many of them were you? How many of your siblings?
Did you have three? Two brothers? So there's three brothers altogether,
So two siblings. So it wasn't the nine or ten that he was raised
around. No, God give my mom a break, because I mean three
boys was enough. I think he were handful, you know, we're real
handful. He was very skilled and very dedicated to his roles. It seems
to me he always wanted to go into a role with a with a good
solid attitude of what the character was, whether it was King Arthur or or
a man called Horse or any of those others. Did he do anything in
particular to get ready for those roles that you noticed as a child. Yeah,
he took his work very, very seriously. I enjoyed it, you
know, he really enjoyed it. He didn't start walking around the house,
as you know, waving a wander around when he was playing Dumbledore or anything
like that. But I mean he research and that's one of the things that
was a pleasure that when we went through his archive and you find that there's
his copious notes have been written about the various roles, and um, you
know, he did his homework. He took his work very seriously. Jarry
Harris is with us. Who's the son of Richard Harris? The Ghost of
Richard Harris is the documentary that is out now. And I don't know that
a lot of people realized the musical side of Richard Harris was he was he
particularly musical around the house. Oh god, he would never stopped singing.
He loved Frank Sinatra. He's seeing Frank Sinatra songs all the time. Um
yeah, I mean he had a huge career as a singer. I mean
I see him on and that's you know that part of his career has has
faded from public memory, if you like, and it's a surprise to people.
And then a lot of the actors have tried to do that thing where
you have the career as an actor hand as a singer, you know the
hyphen it and and in his I think I doubt anyone's done it more successfully
than him. So um, he he he loves to sing. I mean,
he loved the sound of his own well, a lot of the artists
go from being a musician to an actor. It's not often you see them
go the other way. One of the other way. Yeah. One of
the connections that he has to Oklahoma is the writer Jimmy Webb, composer of
MacArthur Park, his number one hit. And I'm curious as to how he
came across that song and decided, yeah, I want to record that.
So it's actually done within the documentary, Jimmy and Dad is doing a fundraising
event, so anti war, anti Yatnam war protests or he's out in Los
Angeles and he's got a lot of people who are volunteering to be part of
it, and I think someone puts him onto Jimmy Webb, so he asked
Jimmy had to come and do it, and and Jimmy, I think Jimmy
approaches Da says we should record something in this video together. And Jimmy had
written this for a different band. I don't remember who the name of the
band. He'd written it for a different group. And as he's going through
all of his songs with him, there's a sort of great big tone and
he goes, well, this isn't right for you, it's for somebody else.
But of course that you couldn't have said something that would make him more
interested. And he says, well, what is it? I want to
hear it, and he plays it and he goes, I love it,
I want to do it, And it could have been very smart reverse psychology
on Jimmy Webb's part. I don't know, but yeah, you know he's
just said, I mean I can see what attracted into it as well,
because it's an ethic song. Well, it's more of an aria, if
you ask me, an operetic aria. Yeah, and it was also something
that nobody was doing at that time, in the sense that the idea that
you can have a song that long and any possibility of it getting any airplay
is impossible. So those are the kind of impossible challenges that he loves.
Well, the funny story I couldn't do something. That's when he would decide,
you know how with you, I'm going to do it. Funny story
about Jimmy Webb. I've had him on the program a number of times,
and that's the one thing you're not allowed to ask him. The origins and
inspiration from MacArthur Park. Really, yes, he doesn't want to talk about
it. That's weird. I'm surprised Jared, Jared Harris is with us.
He is Richard Harris's son. The documentary of the Oscar nominated actor, including
interviews with Jared and Damien and Jamie, his brothers, Russell Crowe. What's
the connection with Russell Crowe Gladiator? Oh? Yes, of course, of
course, somebody, somebody revoke my pop culture license. But Jared Harris,
we thank you for sharing the documentary with us and for joining us today yesterday,
okay, let's see. Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews,
the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons
from five to seven and iHeartMedia presentation