Actor turns fear of commitment into a distinguished career

KNEBWORTH, Herts, England -- Richard Harris needed some serious persuasion to play Professor Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movie.

His young granddaughter, Ella, provided it, and the 71-year-old actor succumbed without even having read J.K. Rowling's novels.

"It wasn't because I didn't like the material or the people involved," says Harris. "I just didn't like the idea that if you said 'yes' and you did it, then you were committed if they did seven, and I would have to do seven.

"I hate that kind of commitment. I hate the idea that my life in any way is sort of restricted."

Twice divorced, Harris adds: "That's why my marriages broke up."

In the end, though, Ella held sway.

And so Harris found himself keeping company with "Potter" co-stars Zoe Wanamaker, John Hurt and Maggie Smith -- as well as broadening his fan base some 38 years after his ornery rugby player in Lindsay Anderson's "This Sporting Life" brought him the first of his two Academy Award nominations for best actor. (He was subsequently nominated in 1990 for director Jim Sheridan's little-seen film "The Field.")

Within the last decade, he has appeared in two winners of the best-picture Oscar -- "Unforgiven" in 1992 and last year's "Gladiator," playing Emperor Marcus Aurelius, father to Joaquin Phoenix's venal Commodus.

It comes as something of a surprise, then, to hear Harris voice ambivalence toward the profession that has served him so well.

"Look," he says, "when I commit to a movie, they drag me on to the plane screaming to location, and there I am thinking, 'Why am I doing it? I don't need the money.'"

Then, he continues, "I get on the set, and I want to be no place else."

Whatever the critical reaction, the "Harry Potter" film franchise may keep Harris busy as he approaches 80.

"This is, like, forever, " says Harris, who recalls approaching his agent to find out how he could possibly minimize an assignment that risks consuming the rest of his career.

"He called me back and said, 'You can get out of it.' I said, 'Tell me, how!' And he said" -- Harris smiles -- "'die.'"