Harrison Ford: an honest (and hilarious) interview about rejecting advice and finding his own path
Hey, it’s Rachel. Just a heads up, Harrison Ford is sort of a salty dude, and there’s a little bit of salty language in this episode. What’s a piece of advice you were smart to ignore? Every single piece of advice I ever got. It’s an incredible freedom to spend your life doing what I get to do.
My phone just rang. Jay Leno is calling you right now about my toilet seat. What? I’m Rachel Martin and this is Wildcard, the game where cards control the conversation. My guest this week is Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford was never in it for the fame. He was in it for the work. The act of telling stories and movies that would connect with people and connect they have.
From Han Solo to Indiana Jones, he has brought to life some of the most important film characters in American culture. At this point, he’s more than a movie star. He’s an icon. At 83, he could just live out the rest of his days on his ranch in Wyoming, and no one would blame him. But he still finds purpose in the work. And in doing so, he just earned himself his first Emmy nomination for his role in the hit showing on Apple TV.
Harrison Ford, welcome to Wildcard. Thank you for doing this. You’re welcome. Thank you for asking me to do this, whatever this is. I know you’re going to find out. So, it’s not very hard. It’s hard to estimate what would be hard for me. Okay. Well, you’re right. All right. I am making an assumption, but I think you’re going to nail it. Okay.
Okay. All right. Here we go. Okay. Two. Two. One, two, or three. Here’s some forward picks, too. What’s an experience early in life that made you appreciate beauty? Ooh, I think I think I may not have known what beauty was. Uh because nobody said, “Isn’t that beautiful? Admire that.” Mhm. When I was very young, we I lived in Chicago.
We went to the art museum in Chicago. So I saw a range of of of art over the years and and variety of different expressions of artistic interest and I um uh I went uh went to art classes there. Huh. I I like a certain kind of order and balance and and I you appreciate the aesthetics of things. Yeah.
I like you know I’m fussy with my stuff. If I like see things. Mhm. I really like the color behind you. Yeah. Right now. Yeah. This one not so much. But you notice you notice. No, I I I know. I I see things. I see beauty in nature not just in terms of the stuff you look at but the order of nature of the the mystery the complexity that that to me is beautiful.
Thank you for that. You’re welcome. Three more. One, two, three. One. Mhm. What’s a piece of advice you were smart to ignore? Every single piece of advice I ever got. No one ever gave you good advice. I don’t know if I got a lot of advice. Really? No.
Maybe because I didn’t look like like I was uh interested. But I I when when people ask me for advice And and strangely occasionally people do. Yeah. I imagine the only thing I can say is whatever it is you want to do, don’t imitate somebody else’s way of getting there. Uhhuh. Don’t try and imitate somebody else’s success. You’ve got to find your own.
It would be nice if you would find your own path. How did you have that instinct so early, though? I mean, I was belligerent. Really? Yeah. And ignorant at the same time. That’s a good combo. Yeah. So, you didn’t charm your way through the doors of Hollywood executives? Decidedly not.
The doors did not fly off the hinges uh when I appeared. But something was working. It’s it was a very strange uh thing that happened. I actually was uh I I one I I really uh didn’t go to movies very much. Um two I didn’t know why I wanted to be an actor. Um and why I thought I would could be an actor. But I I and I discovered uh acting very late in my college career because uh I was looking for um a a class that I could take and get a good grade in cuz I was a philosophy and English major and I never went to class.
So you didn’t have very good grades, I imagine. I had terrible grades and I was hanging out by the skin of my teeth. I got thrown out of school 4 days before graduation college. The first one in my family to ever have achieved the possibility of going to college and and graduating and you blew it within 4 days.
4 days before graduation um I was I was asked uh to go away and not come back. So, the plan to get a good grade in the drama class didn’t save you from getting kicked out of college. You know, that’s the first time I thought about that. It didn’t. I’m going to pull back from the game for a minute. I know.
I know. You’re just getting rolling, but I want to talk more explicitly about shrinking. That’s nice. Yes, please. And um congratulations, by the way. Thank you. because you have been nominated for an Emmy for your role in this TV show. I don’t know how it happens or why. Yeah. Except the show is very good. That is very good.
Very funny. Good writers. A lot of good a lot of very talented people working hard to make uh something that is both meaningful and and entertaining. Yeah. Fun. Does this guy feel like you, Dr. Paul Rhodess, who you play in this show? I think when you’re doing this kind of a show, the closer you live to who you are, you know, the better everybody is.
Uh, you don’t want I don’t I don’t think people wanted to. I have seen in my career that when I when I put on a mask, when I have a a a character that makes me appear to be different to to what is expected. Mhm. Um people go, “Huh?” Like that. Yeah. you you don’t want to put on too much of a of a of a character uh facade between you and the and the audience I think in this kind of thing and Dr.
Paul Rhodess for you felt closer than other characters. He he feels uh um uh dispositionwise uh um I feel a kinship to him. Um I don’t agree with everything he comes out of his mouth, you know. So your character though in particular he’s reassessing life relationships. He’s at a certain age or he’s doing that retrospective. You remember and then is in the context of uh of approaching um complications from his Parkinson’s disease.
Do you do you research that? Do you know people who have it? How did that inform how you approach it? It informed me emotionally. Yeah. uh about how important it is not to um trivialize the disease and yet not to be dominated by it. Mhm. But we have wonderful examples of people who have um have lived well and and lived um fully uh while uh having the disease. Michael J.
Fox for one. Mhm. Who has uh figured loomed large in Bill Lawrence’s our producers’s life. And Bill has other uh others relatives I believe that have Parkinson’s. I know people that have Parkinson’s who are close to me. Um and life can go on with it. life does go on um albeit uh conditioned Yeah. by the disease.
Yeah. Yeah. So um if I you just turned 83, is that right? Mhm. At 83 I don’t imagine that I mean I’m This is just me, but I’m going to be tired. I’m gonna be tired and I might want to work a little bit less. That is that is not what you are doing. In fact, I mean really the last few years because you were doing the show with Hill and Mirin, the Yellowstone prequel, which is demanding work, I imagine, shooting on location in Montana and shrinking.
Yeah. On Apple. Yeah. Um don’t don’t throw in any enough. Yeah. Yeah. Just those just those two things. Yeah. Um that’s your preferred pace. Um yeah, I always I actually uh I like to work and and I’m kind of up pain in the ass when I’m working. Okay. So that’s the setting that makes you happier.
Yeah. Is the working. What I really love is is being able to um work where I live, not have to go away from home and my family, friends. Yeah. For years and years, it was great to be traveling the world making big ass movies and Sounds cool. But I went all these interesting places and then went right home, you know.
I it was not like it’s not that fulfilling. And I’m You’re still in hotels. You’re still on airplanes or something. I love I’m I’m happy to I like my I like my family. I like my house. I I like to be home and I can be home and and do this great have this great job. I love I love what we’re able to do.
What what we get to do. You pick projects now based on the people you get to work with or are you still looking for something that opens a new door for you creatively? I don’t know what I’m looking for. Yeah, I I I I I I I do things uh based on um feelings more than anything else. And then not, you know, not really deep feelings, just Yeah.
I mean, I read I read I read the pilot of shrinking uh one time. What was the feeling that came out after you read it? Let’s get to work. Yeah. I was doing an an Indiana Jones movie and uh Brent uh Brett Goldstein sent me the script and then he came to meet me ostensibly uh to find out if I was interested or talked me into it or something like that.
He said, “Yeah, I opened the door. I said, “Hi, you’re Brett.” Yeah. Hi. Nice to see you. I’ll do it. didn’t even have a coffee. No need. No, but we did have a few scotches after that. I’m sure he was elated to share. I was I just It just sounded like fun. Then I got the jokes and I liked them. Yeah.
You want to play more game? Please. Yeah, I know. You’re dying to. Let’s do it. Insights Harrison Ford. Three. Three. Just right off the gate. Has ambition ever led you astray? Don’t know. Don’t know. Don’t think so. I’m trying to think of what am or what my ambition is. Yeah. Or what was it when you were when when was it to make a living as an actor? Yeah.
To make a living as an actor. That means what it means is same thing. Uh that to be a plumber. Mhm. That’s the work I wanted to do. This is the trade. I wasn’t it wasn’t the you know fame and fortune. It was the work. Mhm. Which is really I still I mean it’s still uh the thing that I that is most fun, the making of this stuff with other people that are making stuff.
And it’s just it’s it’s an incredible it’s an incredible freedom to spend your life doing what I get to do. It’s a it’s it’s almost unhinging. Uh but I but I never had the am I never had the ambition to be you know uh whatever some big star or something. Well, I wanted I wanted to be I wanted to be successful enough to have access to the good stuff.
Yeah, that’s all I wanted. Yeah, those two come in parallel though. Like it’s hard to get that. It’s hard to get the good scripts and the good directors and the good colleagues and stay unfamous. Unfamous and un unbothered by all the you know trappings of fame which I imagine would have been your preference.
Would it been my preference to avoid the trappings of fame? No. People are you know people are nice to me. Yeah. because because of the work that I that they’ve seen me do. You’re into that part and which I’m part of. Yeah. Yeah. That’s weird. Do you realize how weird that is? I do.
I think it would be a weird life to be honest. Weird life. It is a very weird life. Yeah. But it’s it’s uh it’s kind of it’s funny. Yeah. If you can get outside of yourself and like look at it. I I the only reason the reason I’m an actor is cuz I never was in myself always up here looking down. You know, you’re familiar with that concept, I suppose.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz that’s why that’s how we end up here in these bizarre and singular professions. Yeah. Cuz you’re outside of yourself observing things all the time. Yes. Yeah. I get it. And so I was led into uh an interest in why people I’m going to use the word behaved instead of acted like they did.
Why do people behave that way? Mhm. What the What’s going on in that man’s head? Mhm. Is that interesting? Yeah. You just got to study human behavior for a lifetime. Yeah. Hopefully make some good stories out of it. Well, I Good stories have come my way. I’ve been very lucky to um when I was um most active was a really was the height of the movie business.
What are we talking about? Like ‘ 80s. Yeah. Yeah. Late 70s, 80s. And the guys that were working, I mean, there were the new guys, you know, the the the Coplas and the Lucases and the Spielbergs. Those are the new guys. Yeah. But there were the old guys who were still working too.
The Pollocks and the and the Pulas and the and Mike Nichols. Yeah. I’m a a really lucky Yeah. guy. Three more cards. Harrison Ford. One, two, three. Uh, let’s go back to uh one. One. One. What emotion do you understand better than all the others? Guilt. Yeah. I’m done. Period. Guilt. Period. Exclamation point.
Exclamation point. Well, I mean, come on. No, no, no, no. We’re not talking. You got to give me more. World class guilt. Just, you know, pedestrian common pedestrian. You’re going to give me an example. Runofthe-mill. No. No. Okay. We’ll just let that one lie. Okay. Let it let it lie.
Mhm. Have you I’m not I’m asking one more. Is it something you’ve made peace with or is it still sort of a nagging thing? The guilt. No, it’s failures that cannot be attended to. I don’t think they’re they’re they’re all that interesting. Mhm. But but they’re just failures of relationships and the you know all the common failings.
Yeah. Last one in this round. 1 2 3 in this round. Yeah, man. We got Okay. Okay. Okay. Two. Two. What do you find most difficult to model for the children in your life? sobriety. Yeah. Not trying real hard there. [Laughter] Come on. Move on, lady. Come on. Let’s skip it. I’m going to ask another one.
Dealer’s choice here. What does age teach you about love? Oh, old people uh can love too, you know. you you you think about falling in love and all of that uh business of which you think it’s the business of youth or something you know it’s not and staying in love is um is the issue yes maintaining nurturing basically not [ __ ] up Mhm.
Mhm. We all who are in love or in relationships work on that every day. With some days off for bad behavior. How long have you been married? If you ask me, I would say all of my life mostly. I was married for the first time at 23 years of age, which should be illegal. I’m very young.
You had your first kid very young and I had my first child very young and uh and you know uh things turned out all right for everybody. But getting married again is an act of optimis of optimism. So you clearly were not soured on the institution itself. No, no, no. I I and I um No, like everybody else. I’m just like everybody else. I love being in love.
Yeah. Yeah. But you and Kalista have been together for over 20 years now. No. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes. Congratulations. Thank you. I think that’s a thing worthy to celebrate. Okay. Beliefs. It’s your favorite round. I can tell. One, two, or three? Three. Three. How often do you think about death? I think about I I really think about other people’s dying, you know.
Yeah, I think that also counts. So far, I have not developed a fear of of it. Mhm. I I mean I I have the appropriate I think uh fear of uh u being involved in uh uh an accident you know I you’ve had some experience with that in the flying machines. Yes I have. But uh but I but but the actual business of dying that’s that’s just the same everything around us is dying as well.
Yeah. Oh and uh it just it’s part of nature and I accept nature wholeheartedly. Mhm. Nature is my um my whole belief system is based on nature basically. So it’s just part of what you’re supposed to do. Part of living. Yep. The dying and you’re and you’re supposed to die when you’re supposed to die.
Mhm. And you you’re good with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I am. I you know uh and it’s not cuz I’m tired of living. Mhm. It’s just you got to make room for other people. Thank you. Three more cards. One, two, three. You’re almost done. One. What does it mean to live a good life? You’re asking You’re asking the wrong guy.
Why? Because uh because I know uh I’ve been naughty. What does that mean? You stole a cookie. Like I don’t No, I didn’t work as hard at at some things as I should have. I’ve uh uh not been as good a parent as I should have been. Mhm. That kind of stuff. Yeah. Normal. Yeah. Normal.
When you think about what you would, I guess, aspire to have happened to you in a lifetime. Oh [ __ ] I’ve lived like 10 lives. I mean, I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been. Yeah. And what I And part of it was I I really do remember thinking about about wanting to be an actor in terms of wanting to know uh wanting to live many lives.
So that’s what I that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to investigate the lives uh and the the motivations of a bunch of different people. So I didn’t have to sit around thinking about myself all the time. Uh-huh. Yeah, I get that. So you got to do that. I got to do it. So you got to do what you wanted to do in this life.
I did. Yeah. Not all of us can say that. Yeah. That’s a big deal. And I apologize to who? Anybody that didn’t get to do do what I’m doing. No, I you know, it feels like um you really have gotten more than you should in a way. Yeah. It’s just not fair. Yeah. Really? Last one. One, two, three.
Three. You answer it. Oh, you’re flipping this one. You don’t even know what it is. Oh, preemptive flip. First time for everything. First the Emmy nomination. Now let me write. I get to Oh, you’re going to Oh, you make [ __ ] up. Can you read my handwriting? Is there anything in your life that feels like praying? Um, I think things that feel like prayer are are when I can help another human.
when I can get out of the stuff circling in my brain and and look outside of my own problems and connect to another human being. And not to give you a big head, but like this this stuff feels like a prayer to me. Yeah, I feel that way. I feel like thinking about um um and I don’t think that much about other people actually.
It seems that the cure for all of the things that beset us would be uh set straight by following the example of nature. Mhm. And um so prayers are usually directed to uh a god. Yeah. Yeah. When I have been asked to to uh uh to consider what my who my god is as I was asked by my draft board uh back in the Vietnam War.
Wow. I said that my god was nature. and all of the things that are ascribed to um a deity. I I think that all that all that nature qualifies in all of the categories that God has uh been given credit for. Mhm. That’s my God is nature. We end the show the same way every time. Don’t stop rolling your eyes.
No. No. Be good. This is how we do it. It’s a trip in our memory time machine. Got to close my eyes now. Okay. In the memory time machine, Harrison Ford, you pick one moment from your past that you would like to revisit. You would not change anything about this moment. It’s just a moment you’d like to linger in a little longer.
Which moment do you choose? Not this one. Okay, move on. Bye. Do people actually answer that question? Even Brett Goldstein every time. My phone just rang. No, it didn’t. It did. It didn’t. It’s in my back pocket. It’s ringing right now. It’s not ringing. It is ringing. It is ringing. Yes. It’s shaking my butt.
It’s God/Neature telling you that you need to come up with one moment. Jay Leno is calling you right now about my toilet seat. What? Yeah, Jay’s printing a a uh a 3D printed toilet seat for me. What is even happening right now? Why is he printing a toilet seat for you? Is your Because I ask him.
Okay. because because I I I hadn’t seen him in 12 years since he quit the since he left his show, but I remember that uh anyway, I knew he uh um he’s got Jay Jay’s garage. Yeah, you know Jay’s garage. you guys. So, so Jay is like invested in in uh machinery and and Jay Leno has Thomas Edison’s steam engine that was used to light the two square blocks uh at the World’s Fair when electricity was first.
Uh he’s into machines. So he’s got these 3D printers and I had this toilet seat from a toilet that is not in production anymore. Okay. And the toilet seat has discolored in a way that is really unattractive. Yeah. I have been do not want a discolored toilet seat. No. No. So this is in Wyoming.
Uhhuh. I can’t find that toilet seat anywhere. I couldn’t. I tried for years and friends in the plumbing industry helped tried me to try and get the can’t get the seat can’t get it and I’m just sitting around one day like last week saying where the hell am I can I 3D print this ah Jay Leno I remembered seeing this stuff at Jay the first time I ever heard about 3D printing was Jay at at Jay’s garage when he showed me around at like 20 maybe 15 years ago.
So, you figured he’s the man for the job. It’s It’s really hard to make a that kind of call. Hey, Jay Leno, it’s me, Harrison Ford. You I you know, from when you from like 15 years ago or something and I and I just wonder what do you want? I uh what do I I want I want you to to put a 3D toilet safe for me.
Yeah. He said yes. Presumably he embraced the project. Yes. In a way that I thought I never could have imagined. People appeared from the depths out of the shadows and they were got involved in it. And this guy said you can’t do this and the other guy said you well you’re going to have to paint it at the end.
Is it usable? Can one use a 3D printed toilet seat or is it just for aesthetics? No, this is going to be the You’re going to sit on it. Okay. In my office. Uh well, there’s not a toilet in my office. I understand. It’s in a small room adjacent, right? There’s a door. It’s not just sitting there in your office. It would have been if anyway, you know, you’ve told me this whole interesting story as a way to divert.
You know that. I know that. I know. We’re back. One moment. Don’t want to change anything. Could be good, bad. Oh, yeah. Okay, I got it. Okay. It’s the day my aunt walked into my to I was in a crib. in Chicago and uh you’re doing this to me. Um my aunt walked in and said, “You have a brother?” Probably my earliest uh memory.
And I don’t know why I chose that. It’s just what came to mind. Is that right? Which is what it should be. That’s right. Okay. The end. Call J back. You should call. No. Harrison Ford. Yeah. It was a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for doing this. Thank you. You can call Jay Leno now.
