Jared Harris reveals one of his biggest regrets – never working with his screen icon father

One of Foundation’s core themes is how seemingly tiny events can have profound consequences for the future. Has that made you think about our own future as a society?

There are all sorts of crossroads. If the US Supreme Court had made a different decision in 2000, Al Gore would have been the president. Maybe then we would have a completely different attitude towards climate change. We’d probably be in a different situation now.

In Foundation, those tiny events snowball into huge inflection points called Seldon Crises. Are we nearing our own Seldon Crisis?

I think we’re constantly going through those. When I was younger we were living under the fear of nuclear armageddon. The Cold War was something that would keep you up at night. Now we face different sorts of existential crises.

You wanted to go into space as a child, so is Foundation the next best thing?

Of course! The Apollo programme was such a big thing when I was young. Unfortunately I missed the Moon landing because my older brother had discovered a bottle of cider and persuaded eight-year-old me to drink some. Only it wasn’t cider, it was paraffin! So we were having our stomachs pumped when Neil Armstrong was walking on the Moon.

Your TV CV is impressive. What do you look for in a script?

You’re looking for something that is a story that you’re interested in telling. If you’re struggling to turn the pages and get to the end, that’s probably something you should let somebody else do, who’s going to be excited about it.

What was it that excited you about Foundation?

When I read the first season, I found it fascinating that the main characters have all figured out how to cheat death. It’s something that we’d all love to figure out, but what do you give up in return?

You once said that you took a role in Marvel movie Morbius because you have a mortgage. As an actor, how do you strike that balance between money and art?

You’ve got bills to pay. You’ve got people you have to look after. You say yes to things because they tick certain boxes. It’s quite rare that something comes along that ticks all the boxes: “It’s a great part with a great director, it’s well-written, you’re going to get well paid for it and it’s going to be seen by lots of people.” Maybe three times in your whole career it’s going to be something like that, if you’re lucky!

Taking on bigger roles obviously leads to greater recognition. What is your relationship with fame?

I can walk down the street and not be bothered. My take on fame is that it’s a hall of mirrors, like at a funfair, and it distorts the way people look at you and how you see the world. It’s extremely difficult to deal with.

Did you learn any lessons about fame from your father, Richard?

Yeah. He had his own place that he would get away to. He was always pretty resolutely himself. He didn’t hang around Hollywood and do the Hollywood things, not that I knew. And you watch from a distance when you’re a child; watching the way people would interact with him and how he’d deal with them.

How was it growing up in the shadow of such a famous actor?

I mean, he was my dad. I couldn’t compare it to something else. Sometimes I’d be aware. You turn the TV on and he’s on Top of the Pops; that was pretty extraordinary. The biggest difference about him was that he lived by his own rules. That was exciting and also confusing because you’re taught as a child that these are the rules and these are things you have to live by. Then you have somebody who ignored all the rules and lived life his own way.

Do you ever think what it would have been like to share a scene with him as an actor?

It’s one of the regrets of my life that didn’t happen. There were a couple of times that we tried to. There was one point when we were trying to put together a production of Long Day’s Journey into Night, but it didn’t happen. I was always impressed by the detail in his performances. I was constantly discovering something new in the thought process of what he was trying to get across. I think it would have been amazing.

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