‘Mohicans’ ’ Jared Harris Gets Ahead--but Don’t Thank His Famous Dad

Being the son of Richard Harris hasn’t really opened any doors for actor Jared Harris, who has a tiny part as a British soldier in “The Last of the Mohicans” and plays a nightclub bouncer in the Joe Pesci-Barbara Hershey film “The Public Eye.”

“In England, my only experience (with nepotism) really was when my father did Pirandello’s ‘Henry IV,’ ” Harris recalls. “For about four months, every job I went on (involved applying to) somebody he had fired. So in that sense, it wasn’t a great help.”

American producers, he says, are curious about his lineage. “But no one is going to give you a job because of that,” Harris explains. “They might have a look at you, but they are not going to take a risk.”

Born in England, Harris is the middle of three boys. His younger brother, Jaime, is a Los Angeles-based actor, and older brother Damien has directed such films as “The Rachel Papers,” in which Jared had a small role, and “Deceived.”

“My mother had three kids by the time she was 24,” says Harris, who resides in New York. “We were quite a handful. We were really obnoxious and I think quite hard to control. In the end, she got a sergeant major from the Israeli army to come and be like our nanny. She finally found the right person. Our record was we got rid of a nanny in about 12 hours.”

His parents split when he was 7, and the three boys went to an English boarding school. “I don’t really remember them being together,” he says. “They would always make sure we would have three holidays (with them). It was nothing like the traditional American idea or even English idea of coming home from school and sitting around the table and having dinner together.”

Harris would love to do “Hamlet” and “Henry V” on stage in New York. “The next thing I have to do in the movie business is play an American role because that will open a lot more things for me,” he says.