Harris was born in Tenafly, New Jersey, the son of Margaret, a travel agent, and Robert L. Harris, who sang with the Fred Waring chorus and worked at the bookstore of the Art Institute of Chicago.
He has an older brother, Robert, and a younger brother, Spencer.
Harris was raised in a middle class Presbyterian family. He graduated from Tenafly High School in 1969, where he played on the football team, serving as the team's captain in his senior year. He was a star athlete in high school and competed in athletics at Columbia University in 1969.
Two years later his family moved to New Mexico and he followed after having discovered his interest in acting in various theater plays. He enrolled at the University of Oklahoma to study drama. After several successful roles in the local theater, he moved to Los Angeles, California, and enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts.
Harris has been married to actress Amy Madigan since 1983. They have a daughter named Lily.
Harris's first important film role was in Borderline with Charles Bronson. In Knightriders he played the king of a motorcycle-riding renaissance-fair troupe in a role modeled after King Arthur.
In 1983, the actor became a star, playing astronaut John Glenn in The Right Stuff. Twelve years later, a film with a similar theme led to Harris being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of NASA mission director Gene Kranz in Apollo 13.
Harris made his cinema directing debut in 2000 with Pollock, in which he starred as the acclaimed American artist Jackson Pollock. He also has portrayed such diverse real-life characters as William Walker, a 19th Century American who became president of Nicaragua in the film Walker; Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt in the Oliver Stone biopic Nixon and composer Ludwig von Beethoven in the film Copying Beethoven.
Harris has directed a number of theater productions as well as having an active stage acting career. Most notably, he starred in the production of Neil LaBute's one-man play Wrecks at the Public Theater in New York City. Wrecks premiered at the Everyman Theater in Cork, Ireland and then in the US at the Public Theater in New York. He has been nominated for several major awards for this role.
Harris and wife Amy Madigan are starring together in Ash Adams' crime drama Once Fallen, alongside Michael Madsen and Dennis Hopper. It is set for release in 2009.
