Out doing promotions for Agnieszka Holland's "Copying Beethoven", actor Ed Harris talked with The Boston Globe about another project he and a few other stars are working on.

Harris is slated to direct and star in with Viggo Mortensen and Diane Lane in "Appaloosa", an adaptation of Cambridge author Robert B. Parker's recently published novel. Harris would play Virgil Cole in the film version.

The story follows Cole, new marshal of the mining/ranching town of who takes on the corrupt rancher, Randall Bragg, who ordered the killing of the previous marshal and his deputy.

Bragg is arrested, tried and sentenced to be hung, but hired guns bust him out, leading to a long chase through Indian territory, a traditional high noon shootout between Cole's men and Bragg's, a further escape and, a final showdown.

Along the way, Cole falls for a piano-playing beauty with a malevolent heart, whose manipulations lead to that final, fatal confrontation.

Harris will also be seen in the upcoming Ben Affleck-directed "Gone, Baby, Gone".