In his new movie, Harrison Ford plays an embittered, grumpy, humourless TV anchor.

But Steve Pratt discovers that in real life the Hollywood star has a flair for comedy and a dry sense of humour.

"I LAUGH a lot, largely at inappropriate junctures,” says Harrison Ford, not smiling. His is a dry wit with a sarcastic edge in real life – if you can apply the term “real life” to a room of international journalists from around the world quizzing a panel of movie stars about their new movie.

Ford, one of Hollywood’s best-known faces thanks to franchise movies Star Wars and Indiana Jones, doesn’t do this sort of junket that often. It’s a duty rather than a pleasure, I suspect, but he enters into the spirit of the occasion with good grace.

And he makes jokes. Not the kind that begin with “Did you hear the one about....?”, more witty observations or off the cuff comments.

The movie he’s plugging is the romantic comedy Morning Glory, in which he plays a veteran news reporter Mike Pomeroy reduced to doing fluffy cookery items on an ailing breakfast show called Daybreak (no, not that one). The show faces the axe unless enthusiastic new producer Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams) can get ratings up.

It’s light and predictable but, as directed by Notting Hill helmer Roger Michell, entertaining enough. Ford in a comedy is as rare as a funny Adam Sandler movie, but as the embittered Pomeroy, whose attitude earns him the title of third worst man in the world, shows a flair for understated comedy that he rarely gets a chance to do on screen.

His comedy timing, as shown at the press conference, is as good as any full-time comedian. Why not do more comedy? “You know, there’s not a lot of wit in comedy any more,” says Ford slowly and deliberately between a mouthful of ers and ums.

“In America these days there’s a lot of adolescent humour and I’m a little old so I was grateful to have the script that’s very well written and the character was an interesting one for me to play.”

Like Pomeroy, Ford doesn’t do fluffy. He answers the inevitable question about morning television by explaining his experience comes from appearing on those programmes to promote films.

From that, we must assume he’s not a regular breakfast TV viewer.

“I have been part of all kinds of morning shows.

So I do admire those people who do it well and there are a lot of people who do,” he replies before neatly returning the talk to the film.

“So, my character is a pretentious, stuffy, selfsatisfied person who really only has respect for what he’s done, his particular form of journalism.

That was something I could understand, what Mike’s point of view was of morning television.

But I do respect people who do the job.

“He probably thinks it’s a sacred profession and, in a sense, it used to be. At one point the most trusted man in America was Walter Kronkite, who kept his opinions out of it until nearly the end of his career when he came out against the Vietnam war.

“I still think the network news anchors do a good job if they have the resources and have the budget to do it. But there’s a lot of news now that controls whatever political prejudice you have.

It’s full of bombast and vitriol and that’s contributed to the divisiveness and lack of civility in American culture. So I do regret it.”

OFFERED a soapbox by a Japanese questioner, he grabs the opportunity to talk about environmental issues and his 25-year involvement with the organisation Conservation International. On their behalf he attended the Nagoya summit last year to urge adoption of their agenda. By the way, he says, do we know the names of the only three nations on the planet that aren’t signatories to the UN Convention on biodiversity?

No, but you can guess from his tone – and he confirms this – that one is the United States of America.

He went to the conference not only to urge nations to do more for the protection of the environment but to urge that the US sign up to the UN treaty governing conservation.

“So it’s an ongoing battle and I’m happy to be able to be part of it. It’s critical that we make significant attempts to address the issue, so our children can have something of the world left to live in,” Ford says.

Back to the film and he found little difficulty slipping into the skin of the third worst person in the world. “It was a very well-writtten script and the character was quite clear – the path of the character from being the third worst person in the world to perhaps the fourth through the relationship he has with Rachel’s character and the clear dramatic obligation was great fun to play.”

Ford has another hotly-anticipated movie, Cowboys And Aliens, out this summer in which he and current screen James Bond, Daniel Craig, fight aliens in the wild west. “It seems to be the kind of movie people go to these days and for once I’m delighted to be involved in one of those,” he says.

“Everyone involved did a bang-up job. It was wonderful working with Daniel Craig, quite a funny, smart guy and the director, Jon Favreau, did the last two Ironman films. It’s a very different kind of movie, I was very happy to do it. I love westerns, great to be outside on a horse – and I play a grumpy old man in that as well.”

He talks about working with Morning Glory costar Diane Keaton (“fun to work with – she’s very inventive and smart about what she does”), meeting other news anchors (“we ended up telling jokes”) and third Indiana Jones film co-star Alison Doody (“quite beautiful, played my love interest, lucky me”).

Having displayed a neat sense of humour, you have to wonder what makes Ford laugh. Not a question he can easily answer. Or name names of those he finds funny. He does anyway. Steve Martin makes him laugh. So does Robin Williams.

What about Billy Connolly? asks a Scottish journalist. “I like Billy Connolly quite a lot but then I liked Benny Hill,” says Ford. I think he was joking.

■ Morning Glory (12A) opens in cinemas on Friday.