Julie Harris: To Be Human

Julie Harris, in 1962, while filming the Robert Wise film The Haunting.

Interview with James Grissom

Hotel Wyndham

1991

We keep talking--and over the years, I kept looking--but we are both going to keep arriving at the same location. Curiosity and hunger may have always led me to look for things and for opportunities and for people, but it was love that was always the solution or the remedy or the gift. I know I sound repetitious, but the greatest art that is available to us always--and always needed--is to be fully, gloriously human. To give what we can; to offer what we must; to be available. There is frequently no work; there is far too often no money or affection. There is always, always the demand for humanity, and I think humanity is glorious and loving and noble. I do not believe that our natural state is debased or dark. I don't. I will not believe that. I have had far too much evidence to the contrary. So there is always something that is demanded of us, and we are always employed in the greatest artistic enterprise in the world--to be human.

©2013 James Grissom

From Artistic Suicide