Ford hasn’t run out of firsts
At 80, actor continues to show he’s more than an action hero with inaugural major TV role in ‘1923’
In the course of 20 months and in the midst of a pandemic, Harrison Ford filmed a “Raiders of the Lost Ark” sequel in England. He shot a 10-part comedy, “Shrinking,” in Burbank, California. He herded cattle up a mountain in subzero Montana temperatures for “1923,” the latest prequel to the hit western series “Yellowstone.”
He also celebrated his 80th birthday.
“I’ve been working pretty much back-to-back, which is not what I normally do,” said Ford recently.
“I don’t know how it happened,” he added. “But it happened.”
It has been 45 years since Ford leaped off the screen as Han Solo in the original “Star Wars” movie, laying the foundation for a blockbuster career in which he has personified some of the most commercially successful movie franchises in film history. He has appeared in more than 70 movies, with a combined worldwide box-office gross of more than $9 billion. By now, it would seem, he has nothing left to prove.
But at an age when many of his contemporaries have receded from public view, Ford is not slowing down, much less stepping away to spend more time at his ranch in Jackson, Wyoming. He is still trying new things — “1923” represents his first major television part — still searching for one more role, still driven to stay before the camera.
“I love it,” he said. “I love the challenge and the process of making a movie. I feel at home. It’s what I’ve spent my life doing.”
And why should he slow down?
Ford shows no sign of fading, physically or mentally. In his pace and eclectic choice of roles, including the weathered and weary rancher Jacob Dutton of “1923,” he seems as determined as ever to show that he can be more than just the swashbuckling action hero who gave the world Han Solo and Indiana Jones.
“He can rest on his laurels. He doesn’t need to work financially,” said Mark Hamill, 71, who played
Luke Skywalker in the original “Star Wars” film. “To be doing another ‘Indiana Jones’ — I’m in awe of him.”
Ford was always more than just another charismatic Hollywood action star. He could act. There was the swagger and the smirk, but they were put to service in presenting complex heroes with flaws and self-doubt, including John Book, the detective in “Witness”; Jack Ryan, the CIA analyst at the center of the Tom Clancy novels that inspired the films; and Rick Deckard, battling bioengineered humanoids in “Blade Runner.”
That style distinguished him for much of his career from monosyllabic, musclebound action stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jean-Claude Van Damme, and it has always been integral to his appeal.
Television isn’t entirely new territory for Ford. When George Lucas cast him as a white-cowboyhat-wearing drag racer in the 1973 film “American Graffiti,” Ford was
30, making a living as a part-time carpenter in Los Angeles. By then he had already been picking up modest roles in series such as “Ironside,” “The Virginian” and “Gunsmoke” since the late 1960s.
His role in “1923,” which recently debuted on Paramount+, is anything but modest: the greatgreat-great uncle of John Dutton III, the family patriarch portrayed by Kevin Costner in “Yellowstone,” TV’s most popular drama. As with “Yellowstone,” the scope of “1923” is vast — the Western vistas, the sweeping aerial shots, the complexity of the characters
and their stories. It also features another major star, Helen Mirren, as his wife, Cara, the tough matriarch of the family.
Ford said he had agreed to the role after Taylor Sheridan, the lead creator behind the “Yellowstone” franchise, brought him to his ranch outside Fort Worth, Texas, and sketched out the character. Ford was intrigued by Dutton, a stoic and somber rancher who must battle in the final years of his life to protect his land and family.
“The character is not the usual character for me,” Ford said, likening it to his role playing a psychiatrist with Jason Segel in “Shrinking,” created by Segel, Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein, debuting in January on Apple TV+. “I’ve never been to a psychiatrist in my life.”
Filming “1923” tested his resilience and his love of the craft. Montana proved a brutal place to work; the cast and crew encountered blinding blizzards and stunningly low temperatures during 10-hour days spent almost entirely outdoors.
Ben Richardson, who directed most of the “1923” episodes, described filming Ford as he rode horses up steep mountains, against knife-sharp winds, as Dutton herds cattle to higher altitudes and the promise of fields to graze.
“I’ve never had a complaint from him,” Richardson said. “I can’t express how much of a team player he is — to the point that it’s shocking. He’s Harrison Ford. He could be doing anything. I’m sure there are people who would prefer to have a double standing in. He did not.
“There’s something truly compelling about watching him deal with difficult situations,” he said.
From Ford’s earliest days as Han Solo, he has been wary of being typecast as a go-to action hero. He agreed to do the blockbusters urged on him by Lucas or Steven Spielberg, but he also sought more than laser guns and bullwhips, gravitating to films like Peter Weir’s “Witness” (1985) and to directors like Alan J. Pakula (“Presumed Innocent,” “The Devil’s Own”).
“I always went from a movie for me to a movie for them,” he said, referring to directors — and audiences — with a taste for actionhero blockbusters. “I don’t want to work for just one audience.”
So it is that Ford will play a rancher in “1923” and a therapist in “Shrinking” — six months before his fifth “Indiana Jones” movie, “The Dial of Destiny,” opens in June.
Ford is not a pioneer. He resisted television for many years, and in finally relenting, he is following other major box-office stars — Costner on “Yellowstone” and Sylvester Stallone on “Tulsa King” — who have joined Sheridan television productions.
Still, as he prepared to attend the recent Los Angeles premiere of “1923,” it was clear where his heart remained.
“The important thing is to go into a dark room with strangers, experience the same thing and have an opportunity to consider your common humanity,” Ford said. “With strangers. And the music — the sound system is better, right? The dark is deeper, right? And the icebox not so close.”
Ford paused at his revealing reference to a kitchen appliance from another era — the era when he grew up. He could not help but laugh at his lapse. “Icebox!” he said.