The “iconic” actor Tommy Lee Jones loved working with: “A hell of a lot of fun to be around”

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The “iconic” actor Tommy Lee Jones loved working with: “A hell of a lot of fun to be around”

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Fri 16 January 2026 13:30, UK

If you’re a bad guy in a movie, or even a guy who is accused of doing something bad, and you’re on the run from the law, there’s one person in particular you want to avoid coming after you: Tommy Lee Jones.

Now, I am of course basing this theory on only two movies, essentially, but nevertheless, they are such good examples of Jones’ ability to effectively portray law enforcement that I think they suffice, and they are 2007’s No Country for Old Men and 1993’s The Fugitive.

A lot has been written about the first film, it being a Coen brothers production and one of the best movies of this century, so although Jones is magnificent as Ed Tom Bell, the small town sheriff trying to piece together the carnage going on in Terrell County, let’s look more closely at his performance in the film that won him his Oscar.

The Fugitive is one of the very best examples of a ‘90s mainstream thriller done right, with Harrison Ford playing the wrongly accused Dr Richard Kimble, a man on the run after being framed for murder. Jones is Deputy US Marshal Samuel Gerard, the voracious shadow on Kimble’s progress who will stop at nothing to get his man back behind bars.

A twisting, non-stop action movie, The Fugitive was a huge hit on release, bringing in some $368million at the box office against a spend of just $44m and earned seven Academy award nominations, with Jones winning out for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ with a performance of measured gravitas that led to a string of similar roles through the rest of the decade and beyond.

The man who played Kimble in the original Fugitive TV show in the 1960s was David Janssen, who shared acting classes with Clint Eastwood, who would go on to date his widow after Janssen’s death. Eastwood was a man that a young Jones looked up to as he started his career, and was appearing in similar thrillers in the 1990s, including as an ageing CIA agent in ‘93’s hit In the Line of Fire.

Jones would go on to appear with Eastwood in the 2000 movie Space Cowboys, a film about retired former test pilots sent into space to repair a satellite. Speaking about Eastwood and the experience on set, Jones said: “Another great one. He’s a hero. He’s iconic. He’s a hell of a lot of fun to be around. With those three guys: (Donald) Sutherland, Jim Garner and Clint, I thought I’d heard every old actor joke there was, but they took me to school and kept me laughing every day. I had a hell of a lot of fun with them.”

Like Eastwood, Jones would go from acting to directing his own films, starting with a 1995 TV movie called The Good Old Boys and then three further efforts up to 2014’s The Homesman. And Eastwood had further influence on him once he got behind the camera.

He added: “It was so much fun to experience Clint’s work ethic. I’d heard about it, and admired what I’d heard. Then with the first movie I directed I tried to follow what I’d heard second hand, but then to spend an entire shooting schedule with Clint, to watch him work and be part of the process was gratifying, of course, and educational to some degree. He was teaching me what I already knew.”

Now 79, Jones has another action thriller in the works called The Razor’s Edge alongside James Franco, which is due for release later this year. Tragically, his daughter passed away earlier this month.