'The Fugitive' Cast Marks Film's 20th Anniversary
28 Aug, 2013 By: Chris TribbeyBURBANK, Calif. — Neither Harrison Ford nor Tommy Lee Jones could attend a special 20th anniversary screening of The Fugitive at Warner Bros., but they were about the only members of the cast and crew who weren’t on hand to share stories about the classic movie.
Director Andrew Davis said the film spent four years in “developmental hell” and that the original script “was so screwed up,” with it calling for Jones’ Samuel Gerard to hire a one-armed hitman to kill Richard Kimball’s (Ford) wife, after a botched surgery on Gerard’s wife.
“Getting the story to make sense, to make it realistic, that was our biggest concern,” Davis said.
Actor Daniel Roebuck, who plays one of the U.S. Marshalls in the film, called Jones “the most serious man I’ve ever met in my life” and “scarier than the man in the basement who my grandfather said would take me away if I didn’t eat my vegetables.”
Actress L. Scott Caldwell, also one of the U.S. Marshalls, came to Jones’ defense.
“Though scary, he gave you something rough to rub up against,” she said. “He had a really sweet heart.”
Actress Sela Ward, who plays Kimball’s wife, joked that she and Ford “really connected” for the sex scene in the film, and that she had to hide her joy at working with someone she had grown up seeing in Star Wars.
Gary Leva, adjunct professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, had the opportunity to direct “The Fugitive: Thrill of the Chase,” the all-new featurette on the Sept. 3 20th anniversary Blu-ray Disc release of The Fugitive from Warner.
“What The Fugitive is not is a big dumb action movie,” said Leva, whose featurette includes interviews with Ford, Jones, director Davis and more. “It works just as well today as it did in 1993, and it will work just as well in another 10 years.”
To view photos of the 20th anniversary event, click here.