Harrison Ford wasn't supposed to be John Book. Well, maybe he was, but at the time, everyone just saw him as Han Solo or Indiana Jones. He was the guy with the blaster and the whip, not the guy who could disappear into a woodshop or stare down an Amish elder with genuine, quiet respect. When you look back at the cast of Witness, you aren't just looking at a list of actors. You’re looking at a lightning-strike moment in cinema where a gritty police procedural collided with a culture that rejects almost every modern convenience.
It’s been decades, but people still talk about this movie. Why? Because the casting was weirdly perfect. You had a budding superstar in Ford, a virtually unknown Kelly McGillis, and a group of actors who played the Amish community with such stillness that it felt like they were actually plucked from Lancaster County.
The Gritty Reality of Harrison Ford as John Book
Before this, Ford was the king of the blockbuster. Witness changed that. He plays John Book, a Philadelphia detective who gets stuck in the middle of a corruption case after a young boy sees a murder. Book isn't a superhero. He's a guy who gets shot, gets tired, and has to figure out how to milk a cow without looking like an idiot.
Ford’s performance is all about what he doesn't say. Think about the scene where he’s building the barn. He doesn't have much dialogue. He just works. He blends in, or tries to. It earned him his only Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and honestly, he probably should have won. It proved he had the range to do more than just escape rolling boulders. He brought a physical weight to the role that made the danger feel immediate. When Book realizes his own partners are the ones trying to kill him, you see the betrayal in his eyes before he ever reaches for his gun.
Kelly McGillis and the Soul of Rachel Lapp
Finding Rachel Lapp was a nightmare for the production. They needed someone who looked like they belonged in the 18th century but had the fire of a woman who knew her own mind. Kelly McGillis was basically a newcomer then. She had a certain "light" about her that director Peter Weir loved.
Her chemistry with Ford is legendary because it’s so restrained. There’s that famous scene in the barn where they dance to "What a Wonderful World" on the car radio. It’s scandalous in her world. It’s innocent in his. The way she looks at him—it’s not a Hollywood romance. It’s a collision of two worlds that can never truly stay together. McGillis didn't play Rachel as a victim or a curiosity; she played her as a woman grieving her husband while suddenly being awakened by a stranger.
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Lukas Haas: The Eyes of the Witness
You can’t talk about the cast of Witness without mentioning Lukas Haas. He was only seven or eight years old when they filmed this. Playing Samuel Lapp, the boy who sees the crime, he had the hardest job in the movie. He had to be the emotional anchor.
Most child actors are "stagey." They overact. Haas just was. His eyes are huge, and they take in everything—the violence in the train station bathroom, the strange technology of the city, and the slow realization that John Book is a different kind of man than the ones he knows. That shot of him pointing at the poster of the "hero" cop in the station—identifying the killer—is one of the most chilling moments in 80s cinema. It’s pure visual storytelling.
The Surprising Supporting Players
The deeper you go into the credits, the more "Oh, wait, that’s him!" moments you have.
Take Danny Glover. He plays McFee, one of the corrupt cops. This was before Lethal Weapon. Seeing him as a cold-blooded killer is jarring if you only know him as Roger Murtaugh. He’s terrifying because he’s so calm. Then you have Viggo Mortensen. Yes, Aragorn himself. This was his film debut. He plays Moses Hochleitner, the young Amish man who is essentially Book’s rival for Rachel’s affection. He barely says a word, yet you can feel his presence in every scene where the community gathers.
And we have to mention Alexander Godunov as Daniel Hochleitner. Godunov was a world-famous ballet dancer who had defected from the Soviet Union. Playing a humble Amish farmer was a massive pivot for him, but he brought a grace to the role that made the character feel elevated. His "rivalry" with Book over Rachel is handled with such maturity; there are no fistfights, just a mutual, begrudging understanding of what it means to protect their own.
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Why the Amish Portrayal Mattered
Peter Weir was obsessed with getting the details right. He didn't want a caricature. The cast of Witness included several actors who weren't Amish (because the actual Amish community generally avoids being filmed), but they were trained to move and speak with a specific cadence.
Jan Rubeš, who played Eli Lapp, the grandfather, was a Czech-Canadian opera singer. He brought a patriarchal weight to the film. His scenes with Ford—the "be careful among the English" conversations—provided the moral backbone of the story. The tension between Eli’s pacifism and Book’s "eye for an eye" philosophy is what makes the third act work. Without that grounded performance, the final standoff would have just been a standard shootout. Instead, it’s a clash of ideologies.
The Philadelphia Connection
The "English" world in the movie feels just as lived-in as the Amish one. Patti LuPone shows up as Book’s sister. It’s a small role, but it grounds Book in a reality outside of being a cop. You see that he has a family, a life, and people who worry about him. This makes his isolation in the Amish country feel even more profound.
The cinematography by John Seale captures the contrast between the cold, blue-grey tones of the city and the warm, golden hues of the farm. But it’s the actors who inhabit those spaces that make the contrast hurt. When the black sedans of the corrupt cops roll onto the pristine green grass of the farm, it feels like a literal stain on the landscape.
Misconceptions About the Production
A lot of people think the movie was filmed in a studio. It wasn't. They shot on location in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. This forced the cast of Witness to actually interact with the environment. When you see them harvesting or building, they are actually there, in the dirt.
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There was also a lot of pushback at the time from the National Amish Steering Committee. They were worried about being exploited. The actors had to be incredibly sensitive to this. They weren't playing "dress up." They were trying to portray a way of life with dignity. This is why you don't see the Amish characters acting like "villains" for being strict. They are just people trying to maintain their boundaries in a world that is rapidly closing in on them.
The Legacy of the Performances
Witness is a rare bird. It’s a thriller that takes a twenty-minute break in the middle to just watch people build a barn. It shouldn't work. On paper, it sounds boring. But because the casting was so spot-on, you are invested in the process of their lives.
You care about whether John Book fits in. You care if Rachel gets shunned. You care if Samuel loses his innocence.
The film won Oscars for Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing, but the acting is what keeps it in the rotation for cinephiles. It’s a masterclass in "less is more." Ford never played a character this vulnerable again, and McGillis never found a role that suited her better.
How to Appreciate Witness Today
If you're going back to watch it, or seeing it for the first time, don't look at it as an action movie. Look at the faces. Watch the way the cast of Witness uses silence.
- Watch the background: Notice Viggo Mortensen in the communal scenes; his quiet observation sets the tone for the community's reaction to Book.
- Listen to the score: Maurice Jarre’s electronic soundtrack shouldn't work with Amish visuals, but it creates a dreamlike quality that mirrors Book's "stranger in a strange land" experience.
- Observe the hands: Much of the acting in the film is through manual labor. The way characters handle tools tells you more about them than their dialogue does.
To truly understand the impact of this film, one should look into Peter Weir's other works like The Last Wave or Picnic at Hanging Rock. He has a knack for placing modern people in ancient or isolated settings. Witness remains his most accessible version of that theme, largely because the actors made the impossible bridge between two worlds feel completely sturdy.
Next time you see Harrison Ford in a big-budget franchise, remember John Book. Remember the guy in the straw hat, holding a carpenter's square, looking at a world he can't belong to but desperately wants to protect. That’s the magic of this cast. They made a simple story feel like an epic.