“The loss of anonymity is something that no one can prepare you for. When it happened, I recognized that I had lost one of the most valuable things in the world,” Harrison Ford once said. And the truth is that at 80, condemned to never get it back, he has resigned himself to giving interviews where seems to be more lazy than eager. And for that reason, a candid portrait like the one they have done in Esquire is so appreciated.
One, two, three and Harrison Ford
In the Esquire interview, where Ryan D’Agostino spends a couple of days with the actor, from breakfast to dinner (and that I can’t recommend more), he allows time for everything, from the mistake in the eggs for breakfast (“Sorry for being so weird,” he says when they are finally served poached) to the reason why he decided to make a fifth Indiana Jones movie. And of course your problem with doubles and old age when getting off the horse in a scene.
I thought, ‘What the fuck?’ I felt like I was being stalked. I looked down and there were three stuntmen making sure I didn’t fall off the running board. They said, ‘Oh, we were scared because we thought, you know, and blah blah blah blah. And I said, ‘Leave me alone, damn it, I’m an old man getting off a horse, and I want it to look like it!’
Throughout the interview, actor and journalist go from a restaurant to a hangar (“Putting this on would make him look like a rich guy with airplanes. Which is what he is,” D’Agostino writes sarcastically) where Ford states that not a movie lover: “It’s not because of the movies, it’s because of my personal experience. I’m fascinated by all the talent out there in all aspects of this business, but I can’t keep up with the amount of products (…) I should see more, out of respect for what the business has given me. I love that a movie transports me. A good story… But I do other things. I clean the dishes instead of watching the movie.”
Now you can’t shake the image of Harrison Ford cleaning the dishes next to Calista Flockhart, can you? Well, there is something that will take it away from you at the stroke of a pen: imagining the actor responding, once and for all, to the typical ‘Star Wars’ superfan question. And you won’t like the answer.
I’m often asked, ‘If there was a fight between Han Solo and Indiana Jones, who the hell would win?’ And I’m like, ‘Yo, asshole! I don’t want to make up shit like that. I mean, why are you asking me that rubbish?’
At the end of the interview, after opening up on the channel, a moment of absolute sincerity outside the phrases that make a good headline: “I can tell you something: if I had been less successful, I probably would have been a better father.”. Few people are more self-aware than Harrison Ford. For better and for worse.
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