Harrison Ford Breaks Down His Career, from 'Star Wars' to 'Indiana Jones' | Vanity Fair

all right whenever you're right just right down the barrel I'm Harrison well now you gonna give me readings I want to tell stories that elevate our lives change us give us experiences which make us more empathetic more I am Harrison Ford this is a timeline of my career well all I know about being an actor was that you had to either go to the east coast or the west coast to be a professional actor and I was starting out after a season of summer stock in Williams Bay Wisconsin and we had already packed all of our belongings into the Volkswagen my wife and I stood outside and flipped a coin to see whether we'd go east or west and I came up and had been raised in Chicago and I was sick and tired of the cold and so I said let's make it two out of three and we did and it came up West Coast so we draw to the west coast and I became an actor that's luck Bob Ellis first film I ever did was dead heat on a merry-go-round I played a bellboy paging mr. Ellis paging mr. Ellis those are the entirety of my lines no explanations required I'm sure yes sir fast chip you've never heard of the millennium Faulkner should I have it's a ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs I had done American Graffiti with George Lucas George Lucas made it known that he was not interested in working with anybody that he'd worked with an American Graffiti that he was looking for new faces I was working on a elaborate particle entrance just Francis Ford Coppola offices working as a carpenter when George walked in with Richard Dreyfuss to begin the first of the interviews for Star Wars somehow that rang a bell with George and I became eventually Star Wars was a big success so I was happy to come back and play han Solo again and again but that was enough but I thought that he had reached his potential therefore could serve the story by dying [Music] surely we're home manner of death was not an issue I was very gratified to see that other people were enthusiastic to help me back I was happy to be there I don't really have a favorite it's just brick on a brick to build the story it's not about the party it's about what you're celebrating [Music] it became clear that Tom Selleck would already been chosen to play the role was going to be unavailable because of his commitment to do a television series I got a call from George who said that he would like me to read a script as quickly as possible then get over to Steven Spielberg's house and talked to Steven and I read the script as quickly as I could I saw a great opportunity in a fun movie and went to meet Steven and apparently satisfied the part was offered to me and I accepted was meant to be a series and while I had not agreed to do three Star Wars films in the case of Indiana Jones I felt there was enough information to allow me to agree to do a number of those [Music] Shawn and I had a great time working together very different one to the other our experiences and our lives are very different but we had a great time working together the guys fun to be around takes pride in his work and he cares a lot about doing a good job it was great fun to work with him I was very happy to see Karen Ellen come back and I thought it was a natural extension of the relationship and I was glad to marry her no I don't really have favorites I really enjoyed each of the film and the different experiences that I've had in each film and the people that I worked with you're not a replicant go home okay no really I'm sorry I got a visit on set I believe from Ridley who told me the story and asked if I was interested I read the script I was interested so we made a deal I don't remember anything like Blade Runner up to that point it's the character the overall story his storytelling skills made it an attractive offer he reads that's good meet you how much else to do around here at night anymore I didn't expect Blade Runner to come back but I was happy to do it there's no difference whether you're working with CGI or or a reality the job is still the same to create a character and behavior that helps illustrate the story it's all drink we're just here for the day would you mind if I took your picture no just stand still please fix your head a little bit message with that thing I'm gonna rip your brassiere off this string got a script from Jeffrey Katzenberg who was head of Paramount Studios it was in the olden days when things moved fast on a handshake he asked me if I liked the script I said I liked the script he said is there someone you would be interested in working with as a director and I said yes I thought I would be interested in working with Peter where I'd seen films that Peter had done Peter accepted the job we had four weeks of pre-production Peter went off just to research the Amish and I went off to research the police we came together did some rewrites on the script and shot the movie I was surprised that I was nominated for the Oscar but the film was very successful Peter was also nominated as well but we were unable to attend as we were making another movie in Belize that being Mosquito Coast wrong wrong wrong for people in New York to live on pet food and would kill you for a quarter you don't dare take a walk for fear somebody I'll stick a knife in your ribs think about it you stay home and they come in through the windows 10 year old homicidal maniacs on every street corner they go to school they go to school a very interesting character that's what we look for as actors departures different characters to play that is the beauty of having a career as an actor you get to play different kinds of characters and different kinds of films which appeal to different audiences that's the fun of it I don't think he'd make the same film exactly today you'd make a different film from the same story perhaps that's the biggest problem of 20th century is son [Applause] you're not asking her jack man go on get out of here don't mess with me man I am an American and I am crazy it's an example of the kind of film that we used to make in the olden days with directors that were really important in the formation of a career for me I didn't actually do it all myself I got to work with the Alan Pakula Sydney Mike Nichols those kinds of films are as important to me on a human level as those more successful films which I keep revisiting in interview situations because they are the most successful films but that's not what makes a life that's not what makes a career that's not what brings pleasure to the pursuit of something ineffable my wife first I promised myself that when I saw you I would get to know you you're the first woman I've seen in one of these damn things that dresses like a woman not like a woman thinks a man would dress if he was a woman thank you again Mike Nichols romantic comedy great fun Mike Nichols was smart guy there were a lot of directors that I worked for in the olden days I'm looking for people to work with intellectually and emotionally I'm looking for something different to what I've lately done I'm looking for something new something different something challenging that serves me to help me choose projects it's very interesting time names business cards I know go ahead play cool I know you killed it you're the guy yeah you're right you're always right Alan Pakula sweet generous man and a really good filmmaker great pleasure to make to work with him story came from a book written by Scott Turow based on real-life case Scott Rowe was a prosecutor in the in the Chicago area it was a very interesting character to explore and he has an affair with a business associate played by Curtis cocky and he suffers the consequences of his infidelity in a in a dramatic way I think it's a powerful emotional story and I love making that one I loved working with Allen I worked with him again on a movie called the devil's own with Brad Pitt which I also think is a really good movie although we had a real hard time making it but Allen made I think I finally made a really good movie out of it what's the money for I was thinking guns I was thinking IRA devil's own was a script that Brad Pitt had developed it came to me to play another another character Brad and I had to come to agreement on a director for it and we agreed on Ellen and ended up making the movie we didn't agree on everything and we hammered it out and we made peace among ourselves and it's a good guy tell us though thirteen you know she is tell him her name give him her picture tell him that she poses as a rare book dealer and ask him to look for her what do you mean what do you do what am I supposed to do with you jack they're two films I did based on Tom Clancy books both directed by Philip Noyes really good movies I was really pleased with them what attracted me to the character was the Tom Clancy had written the character with a political bias I thought that we could tell the story with a little bit more emotional complication we were intent on giving Jack Ryan a slightly different personality or reality than then Clancy did we got a lot of access from CIA because of their relationship with Tom Clancy we're talking about important things a global power and manipulation of history thought it was really interesting to me and I think those films are good movies I am NOT after your job Marty [Music] I did do the future based on on the quality of the script the potential for that character I thought it was ambitious well I never considered myself to be an action film actor there was action in the films that I was involved in but they weren't specifically fairly described as action films I did Jack Ryan movies which had action in the Air Force one get off my plane was an action film Donald Trump's favorite president I'm not reminding you I'm reminding him rather than just being based and and founded on a belief in kinetic activity being sufficient to build a movie around they had a story they had a plot they had characters had conflict so I didn't consider them action films object to you look at you it's as though a lovely breeze has swept through this whole house even though the breeze comes from the general direction of the garage it's the nineties Sabrina so they say Sabrina was a remake of a movie that starred Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn I made the choice when we did the film not to watch the original I didn't want to make choices based on doing it like Humphrey Bogart did it or not like Humphrey Bogart did it I just didn't want to know so I didn't actually take the opportunity to look at the original version Sydney movie powerful experience for me working with Sydney again and the cast that he assembled and I always found it very interesting to work with a director more than one time and in my career I did two films with a lot of different directors second time you always find something something new something different that exists because of the experience that you've had together already interesting personal experience and hopefully good movie she was already dead she killed herself here in my house to destroy me bad guy bad bad guy fun great fun Michelle Pfeiffer Bob Zemeckis directed it and it was a first really bad guy oh yeah I enjoy a good tale and I'm not just looking for good guys to find him I'm interested in the humanity of characters that are not obviously good it was my ambition or to take the success of more popular films and allow me to make choices which would be less obvious less focused on the potential economic success of the film but to play different kinds of characters and stretch people's sense of who I was and allow me to explore the full range of potential characters activate the system the primary was never connected it has to be activated locally go to mine and turn on the system that was a very interesting experience kathryn bigelow directed it we shot them some of it in Russia a great deal of it in Canada and Newfoundland exploring the lives of of Russian submariners based on a real-life story getting to know those people and what they've been through and be part of the telling of that story to a chance to work with Kathryn Bigelow so far I think the only woman director that I worked with that seems weird to me I like that movie I like the sophistication of the storytelling in that movie very much can I just say one thing that's our job I know you think you're above it and of course you were above it before you got fired but now you guess what you down in the muck with the rest of his life and yet I still have standards unfortunately for you suppose I don't have standards sure you do when you got your peps mirror on air you wore a silk robe okay classy touch wearing Gloria was a romp about the news business was directed by Roger Michele and I got to work with Diane Keaton it was fabulous I'd never met her before again yeah she's great really great if you saw the behind the scenes footage and it looked like we were having a good time it's probably because we were having a good time that was real yeah we had a good time it was fun watch Mike Pomeroy before your morning dump what'd you do with your team is your decision herb but my team's gonna be in Philadelphia tomorrow with Robinson and if we have to claim the game as a forfeit so be it that's 9 to 0 42 Brian held was a movie about Branch Rickey who brought Jackie Robinson the first black baseball player into organized white baseball change baseball changed the culture of this country for the better no I was not a baseball fan and didn't know much about baseball I didn't know the different that there was black baseball and white baseball of course black baseball players were not being paid what white baseball players were being paid this is a guy who out of a conscience and an understanding changed history there was a real pleasure to be part of the telling of that story you think God likes baseball herb wasn't the gold he didn't care about the head was the mountains he spent all day looking at maps and had pictures of the mountains dreaming about what was on the other side places no one had been places it was a challenge in call of the wild in getting the character more complex and and potentially more emotionally involving than the way the character is presented in the book John Thornton was facing domestic issues if you will that he had run away from in the context of his relationship with with buck the opportunity to see John Thornton as a as a redemption of the experience that Buckethead with humanity was part of what I was interested in exploring there's a book I read it a long time ago and then I read it recently more than twice the film was shot not in Alaska but was shot in Santa Clarita which is 24 miles from here not cold not the Yukon we ended up in in CGI territory not just for the convenience of it because all of the animals were computer-generated much of the articulation of the dogs the capacity to manipulate their performances we would not have been able to do that without CGI and at the same time since we were shooting on a CGI platform we could enhance the environment and so we were able to excise the santa clarita of it to create in a very imaginative and powerful way i think the beauty and majesty of nature i don't have any particular easily described process when it comes to selecting what i'm gonna do i do have to have an emotional reaction to the material i've got to feel genuinely that i have experience allows me to meet the challenges of the of the expression of that character the experience I've had working with different directors different actors I've certainly learned more about the craft of acting you never know how it's gonna turn out actually I do remember that when I was leaving school and all of my friends were going off to well they were they were graduating I was getting thrown out but they went on to professional careers after which they would retire play golf and diet and I was looking for some way out of that I wanted excitement I wanted a challenge I didn't want a real job and I was lucky [Music] this is her a support this has been the timeline of my career so far [Music]

Channel: Vanity Fair

Views: 3,009,624

Rating: 4.9458499 out of 5

Keywords: harrison ford, harrison ford interview, career timeline, harrison ford career timeline, harrison ford career, the call of the wild, call of the wild, harrison ford films, harrison ford call of the wild, harrison ford the call of the wild, harrison ford star wars, harrison ford indiana jones, harrison ford 2020, star wars, indiana jones, what lies beneath, working girl, raiders of the lost ark, blade runner, harrison ford roles, harrison ford movies, harrison, vanity fair

Id: XNN1Hbg9oNU

Length: 22min 41sec (1361 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 27 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Stonewalled89]

He seems absolutely delighted to be able to talk about the movies he made other than Star Wars and Indiana Jones... I imagine he rarely gets asked about them

[u/TheHeyHeyMan]

Love how happy he was to be a villain in What Lies Beneath, that devilish smile he had while talking about how bad of a guy that character is was great. I'd be down for more evil roles! He seems to like working with interesting and intelligent directors, too, I wonder how he'd fare in something from David Fincher, or PTA.

[u/scottpacino1]

Regarding Henry. Plays a gun shot victim and had to act like he’s 5 again. Pretty good movie and doesn’t ask anyone where is his wife.

[u/crusty_jugglers93]

I can't think of many actors who have as many iconic characters as Harrison Ford.

[u/doug]

When he counts directors off on his fingers and they cut out who the last director was, I'd wager it was Roman Polanski, considering they just showed and talked about Frantic.

Just an observation.

[u/TikionFleek]

His Jack Ryan movies are some of my all time favorites. They're amazing political thrillers.

[u/Mixhaeljeffreyjordan]

i mean he's provided quality trucks and sedans at rock-bottom prices for years to the greater Wellington area of Ohio

[u/ExleyPearce]

The Mosquito Coast isn’t nearly discussed enough, Ford was amazing in that in playing against type, miles away from Indy, Han, so convincing as this manic disillusioned individual being overcome by madness. Michael Shannon in Take Shelter is another great performance in this vein.

And actually even though he got an Oscar nom for it, Witness needs to be talked about more too! Such an amazing thriller. Peter Weir truly is a genius.

[u/IllDrop2]

Absolute legend