Harrison Ford was kind enough to set-a-spell with me in Montana a few days back to talk about “Cowboys and Aliens,” Jon Favreau’s genre mash-up of sci fi film and western that opens this Friday. Set in the late 1800’s, the movie answers the ageless question: ‘what would happen if aliens invaded the old west?’
Ford’s Character is Colonel Dolarhyde, a rich and rather bitter rancher. Dolarhyde is forced to team up with an amnesia stricken bandit (Daniel Craig) as well as the Indians he despises in order to fend off the invading horde of aliens and retrieve his kidnapped son and the rest of the townspeople.
I have to admit that I was pretty nervous about talking to the man. A feeling I shared with seemingly everyone else from the press. He’s scary to us. He can be a man of few words and he does not suffer fools gladly. It’s not hard to imagine how many “fools” become entertainment reporters, so you can see how he may build a reputation of being “difficult” among them.
The night before I had expressed my nervousness to director Jon Favreau at a mixer, and he smiled, shrugged and said “you’ll be fine, just talk about the work.” At the end of the day, the man is a serious actor who values his privacy. It’s not a good idea to ask him about his private life or about being Han Solo. Really not a good Idea.
So I tried to talk about the work, what it was like being out on location and collaborating with his co-stars. He was gracious and engaged and I survived to tell the tale without a scratch. Watch the interview embedded above and let me know what you think.
I’ll have a few more of these pieces coming up this week, and you can read Drew’s review of the film here. (I liked it way more than he did, but hey, it’s his blog, what can ya do?)
Cowboys and Aliens opens this Friday, July 29th in theaters everywhere. Click the event box below to order tickets.
Alex Dorn grew up on a farm and learned how to tweet at an early age.