Perhaps Harrison Ford’s greatest adventure was having a career at all.
Maybe Robert Downey Jr., now known as “Iron Man,” performed his most heroic stunt by getting work in Hollywood after all seemed lost.
Sometimes fame and fortune come to an actor in his late teens or early 20s, and his path is paved with ingénues and Porsches. But sometimes it doesn’t happen that way. Sometimes the route is more labyrinthine, more perilous — and longer.
Here’s to the often unfashionably late arrivals. They missed their cues, but eventually they hit their marks.
On Friday, Ford stars in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” He’s 65 years old, which is not uncommon in Hollywood. Much of the chatter leading up to this latest chapter in the George Lucas-Steven Spielberg adventure series has focused on Ford cracking the whip at villains at an age when most American men are seated on a bass boat or in a golf cart.
But there was a time when Ford was just another thespian clinging to his SAG card with a list of minor credits to his name and a thriving career as a carpenter. Stardom didn’t come along until a lot of nails had gone into a lot of two-by-fours. Lucas hired him to do some carpentry work in his home, then cast him as the cowboy-hatted lothario on wheels in “American Graffiti,” in 1973.
That later led to his leading role as Hans Solo in “Star Wars” at the age of 34, and from that point on the hammer got much less use.
It happens that way sometimes. For every “21 Jump Street” that launches a Johnny Depp, there are 50 to 100 — and probably more — actors paying their dues and other people’s dues well into their 30s, 40s and sometimes beyond.
Success in spite of himself
Downey Jr. took a different road than Ford, but he still arrived late to his ultimate destination. His early career was not about building, but rather about tearing down.
His drug escapades are too extensive to detail here, but suffice to say there was a time when he was a mess and everybody in Hollywood avoided him like Heidi Fleiss avoids Tom Sizemore. Film companies couldn’t get insurance to cover projects that involved him. He told a judge in 1999: “It’s like I have a loaded gun in my mouth and my finger’s on the trigger. And I like the taste of the gun metal.” He was an immensely talented tragedy.
But now he’s back, on top of the marquee, as the star of “Iron Man” at the age of 43. Because he was reborn, he is actually kind of a Hollywood newcomer.
Perhaps if actors could simply chart their careers anticipating such a mid-life renaissance, they could relax, lie in a hammock and confront the arrival of success by saying, “What took you so long?”
Morgan Freeman is an established star and Oscar winner (“Million Dollar Baby.”) He’s almost 71, and it feels as if he’s been an icon in Hollywood for almost as long as the Hollywood sign. But he spent 20 years doing stage work and minor roles before his breakout performance as a deadly pimp in the 1987 film, “Street Smart,” which was noticed and lauded by The New Yorker critic Pauline Kael. That occurred when Freeman was about 50.
And then there is George Clooney. His charm and charisma are imbedded in the industry much the same way his star is rooted on the Walk of Fame. But he was in his early 30s when he nabbed the role of Dr. Doug Ross on “ER” in 1994. Before that he had done years’ worth of small roles in television and films, and once “ER” took off it still took a while before he broke through as a bona fide movie hunk, which can be identified as either “One Fine Day” (with Michelle Pfeiffer) in 1996, or “Batman and Robin” in ’97.
Women need to start youngThe late bloomer in the entertainment industry is almost exclusively a male phenomenon. Rarely do women bust out after a 20-year climb to achieve stardom in their 40s. By the time many men finally get their chance, women have lost their chance.
Meryl Streep, 58, is one of the most prominent examples of longevity among actresses in the biz. But she started early, and was cast in “The Deer Hunter” when she was 28. Susan Sarandon, who is 61, made “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” when she was 29 and had been working steadily before that. It seems women need to start earlier if they want to stay longer.
The men? They have time. Lots of time. Harrison Ford probably could have waited until he was 60 before he quit putting up dry wall. He may not have gotten “Blade Runner” or “Working Girl,” but he could certainly have done “Air Force One” and “Firewall.” Perhaps with the added wisdom of age he could also have avoided doing “Random Hearts” and “Six Days Seven Nights.”
No one would wish Robert Downey Jr. any extended time with his drug habit. But he could have dried out longer — another 10 years even — before emerging to work again. There is ample evidence of his talents on pictures like “Chaplin” and even “Less Than Zero,” the film experience that he said may have laid the groundwork for his addiction. The opinion of his behavior during his worst days was uniformly disapproving, yet the view of his acting ability is that it would only improve with seasoning.
Perhaps the best course of action for an aspiring actor is not to wait until he is in his 30s or 40s or beyond before ordering up head shots. Yet if he does decide to go that way, there is still hope. And he can be assured of knowing that he has lots of company.