Star Wars Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford Interviews 1977 Brian Linehan's City Lights

Walter working we are here in California on Star Wars with Carrie Fisher I would like to say hello because it's been a while since you were in Toronto Canada on the stage of the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Irene five years is it five years I was young then you're younger now may I get your neurology I just understand you that without the ruby red lipstick that Princess Lea wears in Star Wars you look much softer well that's not my fault what about the earphones yes yes they may bring back Hickey Mouse they won't bring back anything else you tell us something is a woman who recently in speaking with the New York Times was talking about her life and her career and pointed out that you wanted to live and work in New York because you were serious about acting - eyes are you living in New York City yes why are you in New York I live it because it's much more conducive for me to studying I have difficulty getting around and you know your dark twenty minutes to buy a paper and it takes all you really have to be disciplined it's like a rainy day with nice weather you really have to make your own plans and stick to them but in New York you just go outside get on a bus or in a cab and you get to where you want to go and they have great cannolis there nothing above and beyond serious acting it's really the best cannolis in the United States I could safely say carry what pound you to London were you like Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts no I was at the Central School of the street no it's like that except at Central Schools a three year course and rodda's - I didn't complete the course there as you can probably tell but it's one of the few places that really does a condensing study period you know they do about a 12-hour day and it's a lot of actually what I guess is the equivalent of English training you know literature and poetry and I was a tenth grade dropout so I'm going to remain sort of sophomoric for the rest of my life but so it did give me somewhat of a formal education and that respect but I also I wanted to go to a school it was act they don't have acting schools you know banging lockers passing notes and cheating on tests can I share something with you because I'd like to remind you something and ask you if several years later a lot has changed in 1975 February to be exact you wrote a poem and it was quite a moving poem your poem is called Hollywood kids and I just like to read a part of it although I know all of it and you wrote be kind to children of movie stars driving around in their foreign cars there are Sun tanned sunglass faces their petty smooth disgraces they fell from a golden room only to collide with a precocious gloom were you writing about yourself are you now exempt from that poem I hope so at this point I am I'm having a lot of fun with Star Wars I think that that one when they grow up in the show business family because they're around adult parties and so on you become sophisticated which has nothing to do with being intelligent anything else it's just kind of mannerisms of adults and it you grow up too fast and that's the only problem with it I think a lot of the golden rules people come from platinum ones look at Liza Minnelli you know it can be better than that I don't know I had some I have a problem at some points but is there writing exam is there writing beyond the poem Hollywood kids no that was it well I've been working as an actress lately but I have met that was that was kind of a fluke a friend of mine had it written also there was poetic license in there as glue might have been too strong of a word I just was rhyming with I don't know what else it was I I forgotten about that conveniently though does does New York does living in New York give you a perspective living in New York studying in London give you a perspective of California and the entertainment industry you could never have had at home yeah I think I think I have had that advantage of having kept away from LA for long long periods of time since I was 13 I haven't really lived here for long I'm left it can be a little bit of a problem I would probably about via backgammon expert and a tennis pro and so on and I would have missed out on a lot of other things that I think are more fulfilling I don't know you know I I think it's it can be very narrow out here what where I was living I certainly don't feel it about a lot of people certainly leave very full lives and you know and manage to live out here as well the weather's great I agree I spend a lot of time out here that was the only place you can get work I love doing films so I would have to spend a lot of time out here to do that okay Star Wars is playing in theaters all over North America and soon the world we know that you work in shampoo we all know the scene that people remember you for what about the future Star Wars is in theaters what about Carrie Fisher's work from now on well after I finished this I'll probably go back to New York and pick up with my studies unless I get work I'm up for a couple of things that ambiguous state that a lot of actors are probably in for half their careers but I home hoping to get some work about the movie studying I study with a man named Michael Howard sometimes there's a coach they Marilyn freed who I study with cooking classes dancing I do are you playing all the dilettante things I was never very good at fencing in school I took it at Central but there aren't that many parts where it would call for I think maybe Joan of Arc carries around a sword but as as far as she gets with it I'm alright with it but I was never very good will you tell us I've been asking several of your associates what what do you think it is about Star Wars that is bringing out the child and all of us why are we stopping and cheering yeah guys and good guys a very distinct I think you know two different classes of those people that you get so many loser films now I don't you go to use to go to films to escape he used to go and think Fred and Ginger and Rita Hayworth and isn't it lovely now you go and you think thank Christ there's no shark chasing me or I'm not about to kill a politician where there's no car behind me that's gonna eat my children you know it's a different kind of escapism and I don't think it's as much fun and I think that it's it's time for that antihero thing sort of take a backseat to the fun and films and so forth to be able to lose yourself in it in a good way and not just think oh that's really awful my life is a peach compared to that you know what just happened so much I think all right I want to thank you for speaking with us I want to thank you for being able to meet the woman several years later who wrote the poem Hollywood kids hoping to find you a different person at least different from the one that I thought was presenting herself in that poem what is why I thought I just I just find you quite obviously older wiser more experienced and someone who knows what she wants to do I think it's about four years ago I think I have the last four years five years since Toronto hyperspace I thank you very much thankfully the pleasure Carrie Fisher Star Wars we'll be right back with more wait a minute now I want to see him where did you get mark hamill is with us we are a 20th Century Fox we're talking about Star Wars - how does it a that Western set well I first I thought it might be Tatooine my desert planet but it looks like an old Roy Rogers movie but we have Hollywood rubber rocks here we want to make you feel right at home I do it looks very Canadian it's not quite the Canadian Rockies but there's a semblance of something familiar I want to talk about the film and the effect that it's had on you because we know of the extensive television work yeah the soaps the drawers everything that you've done that debut in 1970 was Bill Cosby Destro's be sure right I had two lines and it got me my sag card and I basically made a nice living in television since then only a few things stand out in my mind is something I'd really want you to see you know I mean you can count on one hand really because we deal in quantity they crank that stuff out I did Sarah tea with Linda Blair which was I thought a wonderful script by David and Esther Shapiro and played Patricia Neal son and Eric meeting the the people that you get to meet and travelling like that's the most fun and in Star Wars I got to go to Africa I had never been got to go to England and had never been so in a way the job paralleled the character in the script because I was being swept away in an incredible adventure in moviemaking courtesy of George Lucas and Luke is swept away in a fantastic adventure you know light-years from Earth when recently when you were talking about the role of Luke Skywalker and your director screenwriter George Lucas who we know gave us American Graffiti before star wars you equated yourself with George Lucas and suggested that Mark Hamill and Luke Skywalker were indeed George Lucas I still believe this very strongly because George is a like a kid that is so smart they put him in college at age 11 he still he loves toys comic books I think he sat down and thought well what would I like to do I mean when he wrote the character well I get to swing across with the princess I'll write that down you know I couldn't help Carrie brought him Carrie Fisher came back to America for about a week and then came back to England and bought him a Buck Rogers liquid helium pistol or something some 30s toy little space gun and I'm not kidding you Brian he was running around the halls zapping couldn't you couldn't pry the thing out of his hand with a crowbar he's really delightful he's a shy man and took me a while to get to accept his rhythms but once I did I was completely comfortable with him and I think in a project this spectacular you need somebody that you could just completely trust because so much of it you know we didn't see the hologram they would just put a piece of tape on the ground or when I'm working with the remote and the lightsaber it's all just pretend and in a cutaway cockpit which they're rocking slowly there's nothing but blue screen and you have to imagine the TIE fighters coming in and the imperial star cruisers or whatever and then to see it in a theater and see that the the John Dykstra and his special-effects men I I had no idea I'd seen photographs of the models and so forth but I mean well remember at the beginning of the film that star cruiser comes in and fills the screen I think that's one of the greatest hooks in the picture because right away you say okay folks this is it it's only this long I mean it's and in a way George didn't want hoarders and everything to see you know it's like a magician being careful about giving away his tricks but I can tell you that you see the models there there's no way you can conceive of how it's going to look it it really is a over 900 people worked on this film so when people come up to me and say I love the movie it's hard to say thank you and feel justified I want to pull out a list and show them the other 948 people when you all accept your awards you can thank a special ceremony to thank the 900 people who helped me actually if any actors walk away with any awards I think it'll probably be Chewbacca and Threepio we know about the success of Star Wars and it's a phenomenal hit what has it done to your career what is Mark Hamill working on or approaching well I'm doing a film called stingray for two classmates of George George's one was just before him in USC and one was just the year after him at USC now they've written like Sugarland Express and bingo long and MacArthur but it's their first outing as a director and producer now they had seen rushes of Star Wars and everything didn't think I was quite right because it's a real character it's temporary yes it's a container burner yes I'm back on earth I'm going from starships to stingray Corvettes it's about a kid that's so obsessed with automobiles that he really is he's emotionally dwarfed and everything else and George kind of steered them in the right direction I mean they I think they suggested he suggested a something to look at so that I was able to test for for stingray and I'm really excited about it because like I say it's from going to from this kaleidoscope of magic to a very real human contemporary well I have to thank you we're getting a coup I thank you for star I wish we could till we get to Canada your honor I love you I love to Brian you're invited thank you very much that's your nice talking Mark Hamill Star Wars and we'll be right back with more that was gone so yes really well thank you thank you for owning open and we're oh hey and I have a list design it call me Harris thank you we were rolling we are rolling you all right I just want to establish that we are here in California at 20th Century Fox you are Harrison Ford we have seen Star Wars and I I'm interested you know when it was in looking at a film like Star War as you wonder as one did with the film like Kubrick's Space Odyssey where where the actors figure in the imagination of a filmmaker like George Lucas do you ever feel in retrospect out of the film is playing is a tremendous success that it's the film and then the actors you think he gave a lot of time to thinking about characterization of actors versus the effects of the venom well I think George is a spectacular filmmaker he he wrote the script of course you know and I think he created characters that are almost actor proof and I think that's the way works he doesn't have a lot of communication with actor after he's chosen I mean there are specific things but you'll never get George to explain to you what it is that you're supposed to be doing ah he just defines by by his script everything you really need to know and you just go to work I'm curious about the actor who left was it you left Wisconsin yeah you were working in Laguna Beach California and a production of John Brown's body right and that the story is we find out how much of this is apocryphal and the publicity Department creates a man's background yeah but you were doing that production of John Brown's body and someone at the Laguna Theatre yeah was responsible for your receiving a contract with Columbia Pictures and what was then the new talent program right is it a seven-year contract yeah did it surprise you that your debut in film was as a bellboy and did he got a merry-go-round I know after doing John Brown oh no it didn't surprise me at all I mean it was a whole different medium and of course he had to start at the bottom work out but you couldn't stayed for seven years because you were very quickly working with Universal and doing a feature like journey to Shiloh they didn't really want me to stay I lasted a year and a half at Columbia and then I went under contract to Universal and lasted a year and a half there what happened to a man emotionally who knowing that he's having having chosen as precarious and occupation as that of actor marries the year after he's out of college moves to California and in in the midst of all of this you temporarily abandon acting and you're working at carpentry I mean why the total abandonment of acting as a craft um well they drove me crazy I mean I drove myself crazy the situation was too much for me to handle at the I still I was a baby actor I was 21 years old I didn't know anything about acting suddenly I were an actor and I couldn't what I couldn't deal with whether the relationships between me and other people I could like I I probably couldn't do the work as well as I should have been able to do I mean you've got to learn from experience but I wasn't able to to deal with people as well as I should have been able to do Harrison where was your wife Mary in the middle of all of this I mean was she a woman who was not a profession no she was a civilian yeah did she understand what you were going through as an actor I think she understood what I was going through as a person I I don't know she never knew another actor but it's the same for everybody I mean I don't think that acting is such a strange profession I think he said you face the same challenges and substitutes and acting as you do and anything else but how her middle of this chosen profession as a carpenter I did American Graffiti excuse me well I heard hi yeah and he how did that come into your life well I realized that I was not gonna have my second child delivered for free the way that my first one was because my Screen Actors Guild health insurance had lapsed and I had to go back in the business make at least $1,200 to have this child for free the way the first one was so i contrived to get back into the business a little bit and then i realized that i really wanted to get back into it completely that's what I've continued to do carpentry for probably two or three years after that on a professional level I mean you were working as a carpenter or other people yeah running my own jobs why are your sons named Benjamin and Willard I mean as are those family names or uh no but it does prove that there's a God in heaven if we can have jokes like that under idea those movies weren't out yet when when I named you know we're here because of Star Wars and yet well Star Wars is playing in theaters all across North America now as we talk you have the Coppola film Apocalypse Now you have a film you've just finished with Henry Winkler and Sally Field called heroes directed by Jeremy Kagan right is do a feel that you've arrived I mean do you feel the success that you should be feeling right now with that kind of bill I feel much calmer than I have in years I have the opportunity now to I have a little financial security I'm able to make a choice of my next project on a basis that I've never enjoyed before that makes me feel good what's your role in Apocalypse Now at which an intelligence Colonel Colonel MMR in army intelligence was all of your work filmed in the Philippines it was here cotton nasty not like California no we're just hot and intermittently nasty and in heroes what are you playing heroes I play a returning Vietnam veteran a Missouri farm boy what were you doing in summer stock in those early years was it Williams Bay yeah it was and you were doing musicals and drama yeah kind of roles Oh roles completely out of my range rubber and Shannon and Madden a long night of the iguana captain Billy and little Mary sunshine Joe and Damn Yankees that that I would have been right for but I got the opportunity to do things that I I never would have gotten a chance to do in more professional situations was good for me you're going back to the stage what happens to the stage trained actor who finds himself successful in film can you afford to go back on the stage now I can now I couldn't one when I was during the last 12 years I could make much more money as a carpenter than I could as a as an actor I've any plans to go back on stage or your leading scripts I'd like very much to but isn't isn't California not I mean I'm not minimizing the fact that the Huntington Hartford the almond scent and and the Westwood Playhouse and all happening out here but it was not it seems to be notoriously not a theatre I think that's a misconception there's a lot of theater here and and a lot of it very good well there's always Stratford Canada I have to thank you for speaking to us thank you very much pleasure Harrison Ford

Channel: Brian Linehan's City Lights

Views: 85,489

Keywords: star wars, george lucas, 1977, star wars episode 4, star wars: a new hope, 1970s, 1970s films, films, Carrie Fisher, tatooine

Id: 6Oa2rx37WAo

Length: 22min 56sec (1376 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 21 2016