‘You can’t treat it as though it’s Shakespeare’: We finally know why Jared Harris wasted his time on ‘Morbius’

Jared Harris is one of the best actors of his generation, and he’s appeared in big-time hits like Lincoln, The Last Of The Mohicans, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, and Mad Men. He’s also appeared in some stinkers, notably the cinematic equivalent of acid to the eyes: Morbius. But why? He recently answered that question, and it’s a reason all of us can relate to. Stars really are just like us!

Harris, who went to drama school and worked in New York theater before he started working on screens, is what you might call an “actor’s actor.” He is a student of the craft. He approaches every role differently, like he’s starting from scratch. This isn’t necessarily a good thing, as evidenced in a recent profile for iNews.

The talented actor shared an anecdote about an audition he went on in the ’90s, for well-known sitcom actor Danny DeVito. He’d had some success at this point in films like Mohicans and as an alcoholic Irishman in Far and Away. He even played Andy Warhol in I Shot Andy Warhol….

He related that DeVito told him he had “no idea who was going to walk in the room” because Harris was “so different in everything.” DeVito told the young Harris good luck, because he was “gonna need it.” Why? DeVito explained that a “successful actor is a recognizable actor and you’re trying to start from scratch every single time.”

Depending on your point of view, this could be either good or bad, but it does illustrate one very clear point: the man cares about the craft and he takes it seriously. Which makes it all the more hilarious that he took that role in Morbius.

In case you’re one of the uninitiated, Morbius was one of those Sony Marvel movies, meaning not one of the good ones. It starred Jared Leto as the titular character, a biochemist who accidentally turns himself into a vampire-type when he creates a cure for a rare blood disease. It flopped marvelously and was ridiculed endlessly. Harris played Dr. Emil Nicholas, who served as a sort of mentor/father figure to Morbius. This was no Oscar winning role by any means. He explained his choice:

“I have got a mortgage to pay, you know. Sometimes you say yes to things because you need to make money.” Did he enjoy it? “I have observed that those types of films do well if you have a sense of humour. You can’t treat it as though it’s Shakespeare. So yeah, that movie could have done with a more mischievous sense of humour.”

That’s the words of a man who knows where his paycheck comes from. Art is great and we can be purists but when it’s time to pay the mortgage, you take what you can get.