December 10, 1995 | Harrison Ford is alone in the posh Manhattan hotel suite, unfettered by handlers or retainers, standing near a picture window that overlooks Central Park. He smiles warmly at his visitor, and graciously motions to a comfortable chair. But it takes him another minute or so to divert his attention away from the riots of fall color that blaze here, there and everywhere underneath the overcast sky outside. He is there, in the room, willing to do his bit to promote his new movie, Sabrina. And yet he is also somewhere else, somewhere far away that you will never ask about and he will never describe.

Consider the scene as metaphor. Harrison Ford, one of the world's most recognizable movie stars, one of the most public of public figures. Yet, like the classic movie stars of Hollywood's pre-multimedia, pre-TV talk show heyday, he remains tantalizingly elusive as he holds something of himself in check. He will say so much, and then no more. He will let you see so much, then he will politely, but firmly, shut the door.

Don't misunderstand: In conversation, Ford is neither distant nor evasive. Indeed, he smiles frequently, responds thoughtfully, and laughs heartily at good joke. Even if the joke is at his own expense. Even if he tells it himself.

"There was some magazine article on the fashions in Sabrina," he says in a softer, friendlier tone of the familiar voice that one usually hears only in Dolby Stereo. "And they said that I couldn't tie a bow tie. Well, let me tell you: I can tie a bow tie."

Brief, effectively timed pause.

"It just takes me a while, that's all. About, oh, a half-hour or so."

Ford seems equally bemused when the conversation lights onto the subject of his "mythos." Just about every article that ever focuses on him makes note of his decision to live far away from the Hollywood scene with his wife, screenwriter Melissa Mathison, and their two small children, ages five and eight. By now, this is familiar ground for Ford. Even so, he is willing to till it once again.

"I'm not morally repulsed by Hollywood," he insists, persuasively, as he warms to the subject. "I know that's the flavor that they usually give to stories about me. But it's just that I would prefer not to live in a big city. I would not like to bring up my kids in a big city. I'd rather live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming."

As for the glittery side of the moviemaking business, well, Ford isn't morally repulsed by that, either. It's just that, after he's finished working, he'd rather punch the clock and go home instead of hanging around the dream factory.

"Storytelling is a wonderfully fulfilling profession," Ford says. "But the rest of it is not my job. It's an optional extra. You want that? You want to go to the parties? You want to be seen? You want people talking about you in the newspaper columns? You can have that if you want. But if that doesn't appeal to you, then you have this other thing. Option B is, the luxury of your circumstances will allow you to purchase seclusion, privacy, beauty. And you can dip in and have a little taste of Option A from time to time. But only if you like.

"The one negative aspect of what I do is, you lose the freedom of anonymity. People are very nice to me, and it's very pleasant to meet the people that you work for and hear them say nice things. But, finally, when you go to the hardware store to buy screws, you want to talk about screws when you get there. You don't want to talk about what's coming up or how much somebody signed for to make a movie. You do that, and you forget what screw you went there for. There's a constant deflection of your mental process that occurs, that you have to watch out for."

In Sabrina, Ford plays Linus Larrabee, a man whose mental process is seldom, if ever, deflected. It has been duly reported that the movie is a remake of the 1954 Billy Wilder comedy about a chauffeur's daughter (Audrey Hepburn) and her relationship with a gruff tycoon (Humphrey Bogart) who plots to woo her away from his reckless, rakish younger brother (William Holden). But the new version, directed by Sydney Pollack (Out of Africa), really is more a reimagining than a remake.

Working with screenwriters Barbara Benedek and David Rayfiel, Pollack has given the fairy-tale romance a touch of gravitas, a hint of  darker possibilities. The focus has been shifted slightly, so that the story is no longer just about the transformation of a shy, lovestruck girl into a fetchingly sophisticated woman. This new Sabrina also is a story about the gruff tycoon, played by Ford as a cold-blooded manipulator who, ironically,  warms into something more human and vulnerable even as he schemes to keep Sabrina (Julia Ormond) from distracting his brother (Greg Kinnear) on the eve of his brother's marriage of convenience to another tycoon's daughter.

"I only saw the original Sabrina one time, during pre-production," Ford says. "Obviously, it's a film that was made 40 years ago. It's in and of that time. And this movie is in and of its time. Obviously, there are some differences in the Linus character, probably more differences than in the other two characters. Which made it more interesting for me to play."

In Pollack's version, Linus "lives in his brain. And I think he's given to introspection. But the subject of his thought has never been himself. It's always been what he might do in the world. How his company might run. What needs to be done to strengthen his company.

"And that has absorbed his thoughts so much, and has become so much of a routine, that he has forgotten about other options, other parts of his life. He has consciously made the trade-off. And he's probably given up at that point in his life the idea of ever having a family. Or finding love, romance.

"As an actor, you always have to work out of your own head, you have to work from your own personality. So I said to myself, `What if this happened to me? What if I were so obsessed with my career and I didn't take time for my family? Or if I got to the point where I'd go out with a woman once or twice, lose track of her, and just go back to work?' Which I think is what happened to Linus."

For that reason, and for several others, Ford feels the new Sabrina cuts deeper, and touches something much more personal, than Wilder's original film.

"The fairy tale aspect had to be preserved," he concedes. "But it also had to be put in the real world, a world that we know exists. And that world is not concocted of pure sunshine and roses. It's a complicated, difficult world.

"And that's Sydney's particular genius: He brought it right to the edge where comedy and tragedy commingle. The Linus who manipulates Sabrina, who lies to Sabrina, who seduces Sabrina -- while, at the same time, he is seduced by Sabrina, much to his surprise --- all of that is strong emotional stuff. And it feels real while you see it. And that's why the comedy works so well. And why the romance works so well. Because there's that acknowledgment that the other side of the coin is there, too."

Ford admits that, "partly out of fear and partly out of ego," he found it "very hard to give up a certain amount of control to Sydney," just as Linus finds it difficult to give up a certain amount of control to Sabrina. "But, you know, I went into this saying, `Sydney, I want you to direct me. I don't want to have anything to do with the script. Go away and work on it with the writers. And when it's finished, just tell me where to stand.'"

Usually, Ford plays a much more active and participatory role in shaping his scripts and defining his characters. He feels he has a strong sense of his strengths and limitations, and that informs his decisions about what he will or won't do or say. While he might respect a Bruce Willis for taking a pay cut to play a smaller, meatier role in a movie such as Pulp Fiction, Ford has grave reservations about whether he himself could pull off such a change-of-pace career move.

"I'd have to think about whether I'd be an advantage to the film or a disadvantage to the film," Ford says. "Because the audience has a resistance to seeing me do that kind of thing. And I don't mind making an effort to overcome that resistance. But it could be tough on the film.

"You know, I consider myself very, very lucky. A lot of people with as much or greater talent than I have just haven't had the luck that I've had. But the other thing that's helped me is, I make movies that I think audiences will be interested in seeing. Movies that I think will give the audience pleasure. That's how I pick the films that I do.

"Now, there are lots of different kinds of films that can give the audience pleasure. And I want to switch from one kind to the other. But I don't want to do a film strictly because I can give a performance. I want to help the audience have some pleasure."

But that eagerness to please goes only so far. Harrison Ford feels he has held up his end of the bargain when he gives the audience two hours or so of entertainment. That, however, is all he is willing to provide.

"I don't think it's my job to tell you what I'm like," Ford says. "It's not as interesting as the work that I do. I think you reveal a little bit of yourself every time you go out and appear in a film. You reveal a lot of yourself, actually. So if you put it all together, look at my films, and then abstract me out of them -- you'll know who I am."

Or at least as much as Harrison Ford wants you to know.