Jared Harris was born in Hammersmith, London, in August 1961. Both his parents were actors – Richard Harris and Elizabeth Rees-Williams. His acting career got under way with minor roles in films including The Last Of The Mohicans and Natural Born Killers, but really took off with his portrayal of Lane Pryce in the hit TV series Mad Men.
Major roles have followed in film (Steven Speilberg’s Lincoln, Pompeii) and TV (The Crown, The Terror). In 2019, he won the BAFTA for Best Actor for his role in HBO’s acclaimed series Chernobyl.
Speaking to the Big Issue for his Letter to My Younger Self, Jared Harris reflects on questionable teenage haircuts, his way into acting and times spent with family.
When I was 16 I was in boarding school, preoccupied with passing my A levels so I could get the hell out of school. I was very interested in sports – football and boxing. And trying to find my friend group, and trying to figure out where I was with that friend group. And trying to figure out who I was as well which, of course, was a complete mystery.
If you met the 16-year-old me the first thing you’d think is, cut your hair. Somehow, though I was in a Catholic boarding school. They were fairly lax about our appearance. And my hair was quite long. I looked like, remember that movie No Country for Old Men – Javier Bardem has that really atrocious haircut? That’s what I had. For some reason, when I look at those pictures now and I just weep and think, why don’t you just cut your hair? I think getting your hair cut is such a painful experience, because, again, you don’t know what you want to look like.
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I was quite shy when I was younger, so I probably would have been quite difficult to get to know. Among my friends I was relaxed and free but meeting people for the first time, I remember being very, very shy. I had no concept that I was interested in being an actor. I hated public speaking. Still don’t really like it. I felt awkward in front of crowds of people. So I remember it being quite a painful time. I think those feelings were probably exacerbated by the fact that my dad [actor Richard Harris] seemed so much more comfortable in those situations than I was.
1964: Jared Harris opening a Christmas card on the sofa with mum Elizabeth, dad Richard and brothers Damian (on dad’s knee) and Jamie. Image: Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Growing up, my two brothers and I were the one constant, because my parents were divorced. So we would move from one to the other over the holidays. My father loved kids. He loved the anarchy of children. He was incredibly indulgent as a parent. My mother was much stricter with us. He was very accepting and very open minded and incredibly generous. And that fiery thing people talk about – there were topics of conversation that you learned to avoid because he didn’t have a filter when he was talking about it. So obviously, there was a lot about the issue of Irish independence in the news cycle. There was a very terrible campaign ongoing by the IRA, a campaign of terrorism. So that topic was an extraordinary, explosive topic. However, he felt very strongly about Irish unification, and would speak openly about it in support of the movement. But his point of view changed, and he actually came out in the news and told the Americans to stop giving money to Noraid because it was being used to blow people up. He ended up on the IRA hitlist himself, which I think he took as a kind of badge of honour.
We weren’t with him that often. He had two weeks during the Easter and Christmas holidays, and four weeks over the summer. He would try hard to make sure that his filming schedule didn’t happen at the same time as the holidays. But you can’t always control that. But he was on good behaviour during those holidays, because he wasn’t running off with his mates and getting hammered, he wanted to be present with us.
I went to Duke University in North Carolina after school. At that point I felt quite suffocated, in terms of being in England, and the constant awareness of people knowing who my father was. And my family’s expectations: I was being shuffled into a career as either a lawyer, because I was always arguing and trying to fight my corner, or an academic, because I studied hard to pass my exams – which I only did because I knew I had to pass to get out of boarding school. So then the family said, ‘Oh, look, he enjoys studying!’ So I figured I could go to America, and I’d be far enough away from my family to figure out who I was. So I got there and I realised that part of my plan had worked – I was on my own – but the other part hadn’t worked, ’cause I was basically back in school. And that didn’t seem very exciting.
But one day I saw a flyer on the table and it said: ‘Free keg of beer at Brighton theatre.’ And so I went along to the theatre as a social thing, and I ended up auditioning, and I got a part in the play, and I really enjoyed it. I really, to my surprise, enjoyed the pressure. I enjoyed the instant camaraderie that everyone feels. You know you’ve got to pull together to pull this thing off. For some reason, I wasn’t freaked out about being on stage and being in front of people. Because it wasn’t me, it was somebody else.
1996: Jared Harris playing Andy Warhol. Image: AJ Pics / Alamy Stock Photo
It was still a while before I believed I could make a living by being an actor. I wake up every morning wondering if I still can, to tell you the truth. It’s a very precarious existence. But I’d say I really felt it was happening about 15 years ago. Around that period I did Benjamin Button and Mad Men and the Sherlock Holmes film and I felt I had a proper momentum going. But before that it was very difficult. My first break was playing Andy Warhol, in I Shot Andy Warhol. But the way the business works is they want to cast you in something that they’ve seen you do. So for the next couple of years, I was offered parts of artists. But I wasn’t interested in repeating myself.
I met Danny DeVito for a movie that he was directing, and when I came in he was very enthusiastic. He said, boy, you know, I was so excited to meet you. I really had no idea what was going to come through the door, because I’ve seen your reel and you’re just so different in everything that you do. I had no idea how tall you were going to be, what you were going to look like, what you were going to sound like, you know? He said, it’s a real pleasure, and then he said good luck kid, you’re going to need it. And I said, why? He said, a successful actor is a recognisable actor, and you choose to start from scratch every single time.
2023: Jared Harris on the actors’ picket line, Hollywood, during the strike. Image: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo
If I could have one last conversation with anyone it would be my mother. When she was in the last stage of her life, she had a series of strokes which, astonishingly, did not manifest themselves physically, as strokes normally do, but they affected her mind, and they affected her personality, and she became very fearful of the world outside her apartment. She kind of started to shrink and disappear. So it wouldn’t have been possible to have been with her, on the last day of her life, and had a meaningful conversation. But if it could be at some point prior to that, when it was possible to talk, I’d choose that. She was kind of amazing, really. She was married to Jonathan Aitken as well as my dad and two other men [one of whom was the actor Rex Harrison]. She was not a shrinking violet at all. She chose very, very powerful men to marry and she more than held her own with them. She was an extremely conscientious, dedicated, present parent, and was always signalling to us that we could rely on her.
When I was a teenager there were holidays that we used to spend where the whole family was together. When my mother remarried, that husband had two children with a prior marriage, and we’d all go on holiday together to my father’s house in the Bahamas. So there would be my father, my mother – who was by then his ex-wife – with her then husband with his two children, and myself and my brothers. And we’d all go on holiday together under the same roof. And it was a very happy feeling. There was no antagonism. My mother was my father’s best friend, and the executor of his will. Yeah, those were good holidays when we were all one family in one house together.
Jared Harris stars in Reawakening, in cinemas from 13 September.
