Another close encounter with Harrison Ford

Exactly four years ago, I had the rare, rare chance of having a one-on-one with the Harrison Ford in Maui, an island off Honolulu, during the press junket for his starrer with Anne Heche, Six Days and Seven Nights. I was with Kris Aquino on that trip, she for the TV interview (for her then show Today with Kris Aquino) and me for the print interview.

Of course, I’ve seen Ford in such films as Star Wars (as Hans Solo), Indiana Jones (as the title role), Roman Polanski’s Frantic (he spends the whole two hours looking for his wife, who disappears in Paris while they’re checking into a hotel for a doctors’ convention), Air Force One and a dozen other blockbusters that have made him the No. 1 box-office star of all time.

Meeting Ford in the flesh and actually talking to him at such close range (just one foot away) was, therefore, quite a hypnotizing experience for me (I didn’t know about Kris). On our arrival in Maui, the driver of the limousine that picked us up from the airport said that, the day before, he also fetched Ford who piloted his own plane from the US Mainland. "He was sitting where you’re seated now," said the driver who was half-Filipino.

I looked at Kris who, I was sure, read my mind. "Imagine, our butts are touching the same spot that Ford’s butt rested on only 24 hours ago!" Imagine!

On the day of our interview, Ford walked into the room with light footsteps; he was such a low-key and self-effacing person that, if you didn’t know, you would think he’s just an ordinary guy because he acted like one – an ordinary guy. He spoke in a soft voice, almost in a whisper, seemingly weighing his thoughts and words before answering even a question as innocent and as harmless as, "How did you find working with Anne Heche as your love interest?" (You know, of course, who or what Anne Heche is.)

Of all the stars, big and small, super and never-been, I’ve interviewed, local and/or foreign, it was only Ford who emphasized the important role of the media, so even if he was shy about interviews, he said he tried to be nice and cooperative. "The media is our access to the public," I remember him saying. "How the public will see and perceive us depends on what the media writes about us."

That was four years ago.

By the time you read this, I should be, again, facing Ford at the function room of a New York hotel for the press junket of his latest screen caper, K-19: The Widowmaker, described as a high-end nail-biter submarine thriller in which Ford plays a cold Soviet naval commander (complete with Soviet accent, take note) who’s plagued with a crew that doesn’t like him and a nuclear reactor melting down under the dark waves of the North Atlantic. The icy commander played by Ford is brought in to replace a well-loved commander played by Liam Neeson (who, by the way, is also joining the New York press junket). The new commander keeps his predecessor on the staff as an executive officer because he knows the submarine so well. With Ford in conflict with Neeson and his men, how do you think this underwater drama, said to be based on real events, will end?

As usual in a Hollywood media event like this one, participating journalists (numbering around 60 to 70 from around the world) are reminded not to ask any personal questions and to limit questions to topics about the movie.

But then, after talking about K-19, I just might put in a question or two about Ford’s reported ongoing romance with Ally McBeal’s Calista Flockhart who, at 37, is 59-year-old Ford’s junior by 22 years. The May-December romance, according to accounts, is working the way it beautifully did in the case of, citing an example closer to home, Kris Aquino and Phillip Salvador (well, for more than five years, anyway).

A recent issue of People magazine recounted that Ford and Flockhart met at the Golden Globe Awards last January where Ford was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Funny how they met, according to People, quoting a source close to Flockhart. "She spilled her drink on him intentionally – it worked out." They’ve been together since then. That was also, according to Hollywood snoops, how Catherine Zeta-Jones met her now husband Michael Douglas. During an event, Catherine reportedly asked the organizer to have her seated beside Douglas. The rest is history.

Ford is still married to but separated from his wife of 18 years, E.T. screenwriter Melissa Matheson, 51, with whom he has an 11-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son. (Ford has two grown-up sons from his 12-year first marriage to college girlfriend Mary Margaret which ended in 1979.) Ford and Mathison broke up in October 2000, reconciled for three months and finally split up in August last year. He’s turning 60 in July.

If Ford is open about his lovelife, who knows, I might pass on to him tips on how to sustain such a May-December union from Dolphy who separated from Alma Moreno when he turned 60, also in July (1988), in favor of Zsa Zsa Padilla who, despite the more than 30-year age-gap between them, has remained ever-faithful and ever-true.

You wonder, does Ford perhaps hold the same "secret" as Dolphy does?

After that Maui interview four years ago, I asked Ford to autograph a picture of him, addressed to The STAR readers (published on the front page in August, 1998). This time around, I doubt very much if he would be as generous. Or as open. Or as "talkative" as he was in Maui when he was happily married to his wife.

Meanwhile, excuse me while I go on with my interview with Ford.

I’ll try to ask him, if possible: What makes Flockhart and him tick?