George Harris
George Harris is an actor, born 1949.
George Harris was born in Grenada in 1949 and built a long British career out of authority. Casting directors handed him men who were in charge of something: a ship, a militia, a room. The voice did a lot of the work.
The two credits that follow him around are decades apart. In Raiders of the Lost Ark he is Captain Katanga, the tramp-steamer skipper smuggling the Ark, double-crossing everyone, and enjoying himself more than anyone else on screen, a supporting part with an entire personality in a handful of minutes. In the Harry Potter films he played Kingsley Shacklebolt across three entries, a wizard whose calm is the point, most visible in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Between the two sits the working actor's filmography: Osman Ali Atto in Black Hawk Down, a real Mogadishu figure who gets the one scene in that film where somebody argues instead of shooting; an old hand in Layer Cake; a political exile in The Interpreter; a prince in Flash Gordon. He was an original cast member of the BBC medical drama Casualty, which is where a great many British viewers know him from, and his last original screen work was the Sky series Sinbad in 2012, neither of which is in the catalog here. He retired from acting in 2013.
Movies (16)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
- Black Hawk Down (2001)
- Flash Gordon (1980)
- Layer Cake (2004)
- The Interpreter (2005)
- See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989)
- Agora (2009)
- The Dogs of War (1980)
- Yanks (1979)
- Madeline (1998)
- National Theatre Live: Frankenstein (2011)
- The Emperor's New Clothes (2001)
- Beneath the Blue (2010)
- The Heavy (2010)
- Camilla (1994)
TV (4)
Where to start with George Harris
Raiders of the Lost Ark is the place to start, and Katanga is the whole argument for him: no backstory, a few scenes, and more charm than the film's actual villains manage between them. Watch what happens to his line readings once the guns come out.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is where most people know the name from, and Shacklebolt is a small part played with total conviction, which is exactly the job in an ensemble that size. After that, Black Hawk Down hands him the one quiet scene in a very loud film and he wins it. Layer Cake and The Interpreter are the solid mid-career supporting work, and Flash Gordon is the enjoyable archaeological dig.