‘He Was a Disrupter, a Rule Breaker’: Jared Harris and Director Adrian Sibley on Venice Documentary ‘The Ghost of Richard Harris’
variety.comLeo Barraclough International Features Editor Feature documentary “The Ghost of Richard Harris,” which premieres Sunday at the Venice Film Festival, looks to answer the question: “Who was Richard Harris?” The film also contains the revelation that Harris was offered the role of Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” movies, but chose to take the part of Dumbledore in the “Harry Potter” franchise instead.
Variety spoke to director Adrian Sibley and Richard Harris’ son Jared Harris – a distinguished actor himself, and one of the originators of the project – about how the documentary came to be made.
Sibley first broached the subject of making a film about Richard Harris some 20 years ago with the man himself, who responded: “I’ll do it, but only if I can tell the truth half the time,” Jared Harris recalls.
Sibley liked this idea but the BBC – who he pitched it to – were less keen. “The BBC were questioning my integrity that we could do a documentary that wasn’t true,” he says. “They were going: ‘What do you mean, he’s not going to tell the truth?’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s the whole thing about Richard Harris: What makes him interesting is how he plays with who he is.’” Sibley had been introduced to Harris by another of his three sons, director Damian Harris, whose eye had been caught by Sibley’s documentary on Anthony Hopkins.
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