Category: Harrison Ford

When I watched the trailer for Captain America: Brave New World, I was surprised to see Harrison Ford pop up. That should tell you how little attention I give to the comings and goings of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Apparently, Harrison Ford replaced William Hurt, who passed away in 2022. Ford stepped into the role of Thaddeus Ross, and within the film, he’s president of the United States. He’s also Red Hulk. Well, Marvel has Harrison out here promoting the film and he manages to sound less peeved than usual. Some highlights from his WSJ interview (via Variety):

The “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” box office flop: The film lost Disney a reported $130 million after its global box office haul fell well below the $400 million mark. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Magazine, Ford shrugged off the disappointment. “Sh-t happens. I was really the one who felt there was another story to tell. When [Indy] had suffered the consequences of the life that he had to live, I wanted one more chance to pick him up and shake the dust off his ass and stick him out there, bereft of some of his vigor, to see what happened. I’m still happy I made that movie.”

Why he signed on to a Marvel film: Ford told WSJ Magazine that he accepted the Marvel role with “no script” presented to him, adding: “Why not? I saw enough Marvels to see actors that I admired having a good time. I didn’t really know that at the end I would turn into the Red Hulk. Well, it’s like life. You only get so far in the kit until the last page of the instructions is missing.”

A Marvel movie is just another day at the office: “I tried to understand the ambition of the filmmakers, and to be useful to them. I just didn’t sit home at night and say, ‘Oh, what do I want to do when I turn into the Hulk?’ It didn’t seem to me to be a terribly difficult acting proposition.”

He’s feeling nostalgic for a time when movies made a far bigger impact. “What I miss, really, truthfully, is the connection [cinema had] to the culture overall. Now we’re in people’s houses more than we’re in the commons. We work for niche audiences. Which doesn’t lessen the work. But we’re living in a different world, without the comfort of knowing that we’re all in this together. ” When asked what a Marvel movie is then, Ford answered: “It’s a big niche.”

[From Variety]

While Ford misses being in huge cultural-moment films and misses when films had a huge impact, I actually think he’s weathered the industry changes really well. In some ways, he has much more freedom now than he did during his movie-star heyday. He can do an AppleTV show or join the MCU or do a TV show with Helen Mirren. He’s talked before about how he just likes to work, and that’s what it feels like too – he’s not taking this sh-t seriously, he just likes having something to do. As for what he says about the last Indiana Jones movie… I ended up watching it and I hated it, and yet I sort of loved that Harrison was hellbent on making it. He loves the character, and that script was f–king bonkers. Still, it was such a depressing way for Indy to go out.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Harrison Ford genuinely loves to work, but I think he’s avoided working at various points in his career simply because he hates promoting his projects. If every promotional spot was, like, the Graham Norton Show, Harrison would probably be more involved in promo. But still, he tries to play the game and when he doesn’t feel like it, he goes full curmudgeon. Harrison is currently promoting the new season of Shrinking, one of his few forays into episodic television. He enjoys the show, he enjoys his character, he loves the writing, and so he’s actually giving interviews to promote it. He recently chatted with GQ, and I was charmed by this piece:

How ‘Shrinking’ fans interact with him: “What they have to say is really unusual in my experience. What they have to say is thank you. They say, “Thank you. We love this show.” They don’t want anything. They don’t want an autograph, they don’t want a picture. They just want to share their pleasure in the experience. That’s something different to what the usual exchange is with a stranger.”

His great run of “dad thrillers” in the 1990s: “It was a very different period in our culture. It was a very different period in the movie business. There was a discernible zeitgeist, and the movies seemed to capture that. It was a street that ran both ways—there was a very close connection between movies and the culture. It was a time when many of our extraordinary filmmakers were still working, the Pollacks and Pakulas and even some guys whose names didn’t start with a P. I was lucky enough to have come up in that period of time, and so I got the chance to work with those guys. To me, that was the extraordinary thing about that time—that I had these incredible guys to work with. It was a great period of my life and I’m really grateful for it.

How those kinds of “adult movies” have basically disappeared: “Actually I feel bad for us. I feel bad that we don’t have these stories around us in the world. I mean, it seems this is a particularly bizarre period of human history, I believe. I certainly hope. I hope that we’ll get through it and begin talking to each other instead of at each other. We will begin to work our way through the international issues and the political issues and all this sh-t soup we’re living in…You can’t sit around talking about how great it was in the past. You’ve just got to make something better in the present. That’s all. I’m not that guy.

On the Red Hulk stuff for Marvel: “I mean, this is the Marvel universe and I’m just there on a weekend pass. I’m a sailor new to this town. Show me the way to go home. I understand the appeal of other kinds of films besides the kind we made in the ’80s and ’90s. I don’t have anything general to say about it. It’s the condition our condition is in, and things change and morph and go on. We’re silly if we sit around regretting the change and don’t participate. I’m participating in a new part of the business that, for me at least, I think is really producing some good experiences for an audience. I enjoy that.

How he chooses his projects at this point of his life: “It’s the quality of writing. It doesn’t matter what the genre is. It doesn’t matter whether it’s on television or in movies. It’s the writing, it’s the story, it’s the character, it’s the emotional experience for an audience or for myself. It’s people that I have some feeling that I want to work with, or it’s a quality opportunity. I suppose I should be sitting on my ass, but I actually love working.”

Getting young people involved in aviation: “It’s a great job and it’s become a field where there’s a great demand for pilots. We’ve been talking about the failure to train American pilots. America trains more foreign pilots than they do American pilots. I’m not being xenophobic here. It’s not about having to fly with American pilots. It’s just that we’ve known for a long time that we needed to train more pilots, and we have done that successfully now. Pilots are making a wonderful living when, 15 years ago, they weren’t doing so well at the beginning of their careers. But it’s a great career, and I just encourage people that are interested in it to give it a go.

On the “death of the movie star” conversation: “Oh, I think it’s rubbish. I don’t think the question is whether or not there are any movie stars. There’s wonderful actors coming up every day. Whether or not they become movie stars is really not the point. If movies need stars, they will find them. I’ve never f–king understood being a movie star. I’m an actor. I tell stories. I’m part of a group of people who work together, collaborate on telling stories. I’m an assistant storyteller. That’s what I am.

[From GQ]

I love what he says about movie stars and the great people coming up – that was incredibly generous of him, even if I think it’s true that there are not many real “movie stars” left. He never thought of himself as a movie star though – he always wanted to be an actor, a storyteller, an artistic collaborator. Harrison’s run in the ‘90s really was unmatched – he made banger after banger, films for adults and some of the greatest dad movies of all time. The thing about Marvel films is one of the better explanations I’ve heard from an actor joining the comic-book movie ranks. He’s just like… this is what was out there, so I’m giving it a shot, maybe someone will enjoy it. I also didn’t know that America trains more foreign pilots than American pilots??

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Harrison Ford is promoting the latest season of Shrinking, a TV show I have not been able to get into. It’s not because of Harrison, who I adore. It’s because Jason Segel is the lead and I’m just not into him. There are some people I don’t particularly like but I still think they have a watchable quality – Segel is not that. I cannot watch him in anything, he has an anti-watchable quality for me. Still, I enjoy hearing from Harrison, who is basically in IDGAF mode these days. I was surprised that he even chatted to Vanity Fair about how he enjoys working at his age and he’s always loved doing comedic work. Some highlights from VF:

He feels he’s always done comedies: “As far as I’m concerned, everything I’ve ever done is comedy….Finding the humor in the moment is what makes it survivable for us most of the time. I do like to invest characters that I play with their own personal sense of humor. I think everybody has one, even if they’re not funny.”

What he gets out of gigs like ‘Shrinking’: “Oh man, I get out of it essential human contact. I get to imagine with people that have great skill and experience…. It’s fun to work with these people.”

People like to watch him get beat up: “I did always feel that it served the characters I played well to take a beating before they dispensed one.”

What he thought about comedy & comedic acting as a kid: “I didn’t think much about it as an actor, but I did think about it as a person. I always enjoyed humor. I loved jokes. I loved the construction of jokes. My father was a joke teller. The wordsmithing and the ideas that lay behind a joke have always interested me. When I was thinking about becoming an actor, I was ambitious for both kinds of work—serious drama and comedy. I found myself doing both and not really distinguishing much between them. I think I think with the same actor’s head about a joke as I do about a serious or emotional scene.

The comedic acting with the fedora in Indiana Jones: “I like visual information. It’s normal to adjust the hat to match the condition of the head that’s under it. When he’s being lighthearted, then it can be pushed back a bit. When he’s being threatening, it should come down to nearly cover his eyes. But that’s just, I don’t know…hat acting, I guess.

Working with Ivan Reitman in Six Days, Seven Nights: “[Laughs] I love that movie. I think it is really funny, and Anne Heche was brilliant in it. And I really enjoyed working with Ivan and his bunch of merrymen.

Working with great comedic actors like Gene Wilder, Carrie Fisher & Will Ferrell: “I think comedy is not competitive. I love collaboration. Some people are easy to work with; some people are not easy to work with. Some people torture themselves to get comedy to come out. And I kind of felt that Gene was one of those people. He was always very serious about his jokes. And a very different personality to Carrie and a very different personality to Will. There are people that are funny that are very different from each other. And I guess there’s room for everybody.

He will do goofy things any time: “I don’t need any encouragement. I’m really quite goofy all on my own. But when I’m in the company of other people that I know to be goofy, there’s a certain relaxation of the rules. I like to have fun. I like to be around people that are having fun. I don’t like to get too serious.

[From Vanity Fair]

One of my favorite Harrison Ford movies gets a shout-out in the piece, which is Working Girl. I still believe that’s one of Harrison’s best roles, because he got the chance to really be a normal guy, the romantic lead, and he got to just be charming and funny in a normal way. One of the funniest scenes of all time is when Tess is passed out cold and he’s carrying her up the steps, telling an unconscious woman about how his apartment might be messy because his cleaning lady keeps changing days. And the scene in the Trask wedding is hilarious!! Anyway, I agree that Harrison is an underrated and underappreciated comedic actor. It’s still not enough to make me watch Shrinking though.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

This is nice – Harrison Ford covers this week’s People Magazine, to promote all of his current and upcoming projects. He’s starring in the latest (and last) Indiana Jones movie. He’s also got Shrinking (on AppleTV) and 1923 (on Paramount ). He gave People Mag an exclusive interview, which must have been like pulling teeth to get him to do. Then again, he seems genuinely excited to promote Indiana Jones, a role he loves so much. Some highlights from Harrison’s interview, plus quotes from his friend and 1923 costar Helen Mirren:

Ford never thought he would be a leading man: “I never thought that I would be a leading man. I really was just hoping I could make a living as an actor and not have to supplement my income with some other side hustle… I thought I would be lucky to have a character part on a regular TV show. No one ever believes this, but I never wanted to be rich and famous. I just wanted to be an actor.”

His love of the game. “I probably enjoy making movies more now than I ever did.”

Still, he’s now in his 80s: He acknowledges age takes its toll—he’s still recovering from tearing a shoulder muscle on the second day of shooting Indiana Jones—but he has no interest in turning back the clock. “I don’t want to be young again. I was young, and now I enjoy being old. You are certainly physically diminished by age but there are wonderful things about age—richness of experience, the full weight of all the time you’ve been spending getting to being old— and there’s a certain ease in it for me.”

Doing his first Marvel movie, Captain America: Brave New World: “I saw a lot of great actors having fun, so I thought, ‘Hey, I want some of this!’”

On his standing ovation at Cannes: “I was just trying to keep myself composed. There was very generous applause from the crowd [and] it was positive and humbling and nice. I am very gratified that I still have the opportunities that I have to work, and I owe that to the audience.”

On Helen Mirren: “Helen is incredible. What a treat it is to work with her again.”

Mirren on Ford: “In his essence, Harrison Ford is the same person he was when I first met him. Impatient with the annoying sides of the great fame that had settled upon him, adult sycophancy, loss of privacy, etc., and yet immeasurably patient and kind to starstruck kids so excited to see their hero. His privacy was a profoundly protected place. His work was always beautifully designed and constructed, like the carpentry he was so well known for, and I was deeply impressed with his understanding and use of the techniques of film acting. He taught me a lot through my observations. He was professional, guarded, and mysterious, and I was both fascinated and intimidated….I think the element that makes him the legend that he is and will be is that sense of being the kind of guy you would call when your car got stuck in a ditch and also completely understand why you were so upset about your cat dying and shed some tears with you. He is a real god-given movie star, but also a chap, a geezer, a guy, a bloke and a mensch. And along with millions of others, I love him.”

[From People Magazine]

“He is a real god-given movie star, but also a chap, a geezer, a guy, a bloke and a mensch” – I agree! That’s why Harrison Ford was and is such a star – he has that star power, that watchable quality, that x-factor, but he also comes across as a completely normal guy, someone you would run into on the street, a neighbor or your dad’s friend. Anyway, I’m half his age and I don’t feel that way about aging and wisdom. Sure, it’s great to not be a young dumbass anymore but I absolutely wish I could go back to when I was a young dumbass.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, cover courtesy of People.