The directors: Don Boyd on directing Richard Harris

In our continuing series, Don Boyd recalls directing Richard Harris in one of his last films, ’My Kingdom‘, in which the 70-year-old actor played a Liverpudlian gangster version of King Lear. Demanding and strong-willed, Harris knew how to kick up a stink, but all it took were some calculating words from behind camera to calm the legendary Irish star of ’Unforgiven‘, ’Gladiator‘ and ’A Man Called Horse‘

The crew of ‘My Kingdom’ were lining up a complicated shot, which featured Richard Harris as King Lear in the guise of Sandeman, a crime boss in modern gangland Liverpool. Richard is superb in the scene – restrained, subtle, chilling. We do four takes. The scene works without close-ups and I announce the next scene. Then a voice booms out in that inimitable Irish brogue. ‘Wait. And what about my close-up?’ ‘But Richard,’ I protest, ‘I made clear that we were covering this scene with one unbroken set-up. It works brilliantly.’

The crew melted away. They had been anticipating another outburst. By now, Richard had calmed down after our first massive public argument, which had held up shooting for an entire night. That fight arose because for the first, horrendous week of shooting we had been terrorised by the preposterous Hollywood-style intervention of a script-doctor chosen by Harris himself and who was one of his drinking pals in Hollywood. Despite this man’s irritating and inhibiting presence, and the arguments he caused, we had started shooting. But I had made clear to the producers that I was going to stand up to Richard if there was any other nonsense.

But let me fill in some background. Richard was perfect for this part. I’d admired his work all my life and had particularly loved his performance in ‘This Sporting Life’, Lindsay Anderson’s great movie about the rarefied world of rugby league. Before meeting him in early 2000, I sent him two of my films – ‘Twenty-One’, which had several terrific performances including Rufus Sewell as Patsy Kensit’s drugged-up boyfriend and ‘Donald and Luba: A Family Movie’ – a feature documentary I‘d directed only a year before which featured my unpredictable alcoholic mother. I knew that Richard had been a drinker and I wanted him to see that I could deal with difficult and forceful characters.

Soon after, Richard’s agent called with the news that he liked the script for ‘My Kingdom’ and both my movies. I was near hysterical with excitement. Imagine then, pitching up at the Savoy intent on persuading a movie legend to star in my film and being met at the door of the suite he called his London home by a man who looked like a hippy reincarnation of Rip Van Winkle. After a couple of minutes – including a visit to the bathroom where he had stacked hundreds of first-class airline wash bags – he asked me to wait downstairs.

First meetings with actors are crucial. I thought about his career. I was a novice by comparison. Richard had made nearly a hundred films. But there were many issues I had to struggle with, all of which might make a working relationship impossible.

Why had he walked off Antonioni’s ‘The Red Desert’? Was it true that he was miffed because he had been conned about the size of his role? Why had he made so many awful films despite some fabulous work in the theatre? Had he become a bit of an old ham? Why had his work in the cinema lost its early restraint and intelligence? And of course there was his notorious rabble-rousing behaviour particularly during phases of drug addiction and alcoholism. But of course there had been Lindsay Anderson – and therein lay my trump card. I had produced Lindsay’s version of John Osborne’s play ‘Look Back In Anger’ in 1981, and Lindsay had described the stormy, finally rewarding relationship he had with Richard on ‘This Sporting Life’.