Whenever Harrison Ford is on any kind of press tour, it feels like he’s being dragged kicking and screaming everywhere. He does not enjoy talking about himself. He can barely tolerate talking about his work for more than three minutes. He constantly gives the impression that he would rather be walking on nails instead of granting a magazine interview. So while it’s a coup that GQ got Harrison for their October cover, let’s not pretend that this was ever going to be some kind of tell-all piece where Harrison confessed his deepest, darkest secrets. He’s not that guy. He’s 75 years old and pretty crotchety. You can read the full GQ piece here – Harrison is promoting Blade Runner 2049 and this piece was probably conducted months ago. He already sounds over it. Some highlights:
He’s not into explaining: “It’s always better not to talk about it, I think. Just f–king do it. Don’t ’splain it. Especially if you’re getting away with it.”
Why he decided to do Blade Runner 2049: “I saw no downsides at all. The experience of making a film that was a bit different to what I’ve lately been doing. And the intellectual puzzle of it. And I got paid. Always happy to be paid.”
How he’s like his Irish-Catholic father: “I like a good joke. I like a nice glass of scotch. I recognize well-made clothes. And there’s also a bit of an unscratchable itch somewhere. I conveniently found a way of saying it once—my father is Irish Catholic, my mother was Russian Jew…Jesus, I can’t even remember it now.”
His plane’s near-miss at John Wayne Airport this year: “Embarrassing. It’s thoroughly embarrassing.” The media versions weren’t entirely right, he says—“I didn’t fly over him, and it wasn’t a near miss”—but he was at fault. “Officially, I admitted to two of the common mental processes that can lead a pilot to making a mistake—distraction and fixation.” He says that he’d come from visiting his 101-year-old aunt who’d just been put into hospice care, “so I was thinking about a couple of other things. And it was a good landing. In the wrong place.” When he was told over the radio what he’d done, Ford knew immediately what would follow. “I thought that I would suffer the consequences…I knew I f–ked up. I knew what process I would have to go through. I even knew it would be in the newspapers. I didn’t know it would be for weeks. And that I would be Mike Flynn’s new best friend. Because he was in the sh-tbox, and it took him out of the news cycle.”
How he punched Ryan Gosling on Blade Runner: “I punched Ryan Gosling in the face… Ryan Gosling’s face was where it should not have been. His job was to be out of the range of the punch. My job was also to make sure that I pulled the punch. But we were moving, and the camera was moving, so I had to be aware of the angle to the camera to make the punch look good. You know, I threw about a hundred punches in the shooting of it, and I only hit him once.”
He likes Gosling: “No, he was fun to work with. I like him a lot. He’s a smart guy. I mean, he’s a f–king Mouseketeer—he’s been doing this since he was 6 years old or something. He knows what he’s doing.”
How Carrie Fisher talked about their affair in her last book: “It was strange. For me.” Did you have any advance warning? “Um, to a degree. Yes.” And what did you think? “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. You know, with Carrie’s untimely passing, I don’t really feel that it’s a subject that I want to discuss.” Can I ask you whether you read it? “No. I didn’t.”
Harrison clearly does not want to talk about Carrie Fisher in any way, shape or form. It was just a month before her passing that Carrie revealed that they had an affair when she was 19 years old – they were together for about three months as they filmed the first Star Wars movie. She didn’t present the information like Harrison was her one and only true love, she presented it more as vintage gossip and that’s how I took it too. I’m guessing that Harrison probably wasn’t too happy about it but he’s not going to say one word against her now that she’s gone. As for the rest of it – I love that he describes Gosling as a “f–king Mouseketeer.” Bless.
Cover courtesy of GQ, additional photo courtesy of Getty.
Haha. Harrison is such a character. I wonder what he is like in the morning?
Still handsome and roguish at 75. Can’t wait for Bladerunner.
I met him a couple of times (he was a client at a place I worked in, maybe 1999?)
1) He sounds exactly like my dad on the phone
2) He is exactly like this in person, just as handsome, just as crotchety. But also, down to earth and respectful. I was in the type of position where I would have been expected to fetch coffee for people and he always seemed uncomfortable being served – like he felt bad making me get him coffee. He clearly would rather decline the coffee or just get it himself. I always felt like he just waned to be left alone.
That sounds exactly like I picture him, based on a decades old Vanity Fair interview.
A friend of a friend (I know…) has met him too an said very similar things. I like him. And he’s the guy who awakened me as a sexual being after all – oh Indy – so I will be forever be grateful for that.
I was imagining him sounding like my dad, too! Just what he says sound the way my dad speaks.
I love him. I know he’s problematic in some areas, but what 75 yo man isn’t? He is my forever crush, and based on the pics, I still would.
He probably doesn’t even remember having the affair with her. I’m sure he’s been chronically unfaithful and has had a million affairs. What’s he going to say?
Actually it showed depth of character that he went to see his dying 101-year-old aunt, owned his mistakes in the aviation snafu, as well as chooses not to discuss Carrie now that she has passed. I like that a lot.
Me too. I appreciate his reticence and his general spareness.
Yup. He’s cut from some old slightly cynical sparse cloth and I like it. I still love “Frantic” and “Witness to Murder” (is that the title of the film set in amish-land?) and of course the Fugitive! As well as all the Indy stuff. Great actor, he should have had more credit or awards I think.
Just Witness. And it’s great.
Same here. I actually like him for that.
Harrison Ford: National Treasure. I grew up watching his movies and I still love watching him on screen. He’s one of the last true movie stars. Love him.
His action movies were the best.
He’s Han Solo, Indiana Jones and Rick Deckard. Not a bad resume at all.
In fairness, like you say, she’s not here anymore so anything he says might be taken up wrong and she has no right of reply. I think not speaking about it is actually the best course of action for him.
Yeah, but it was such a delightful piece of vintage gossip. I really want him to dish.
First of all, call me crazy, but Harrison Ford can still get it. Why drippy Luke was my first, 2nd-grade crush I’ll never understand! (Apologies to, Mark Hamill, but, yeah.) Look at still-hunky Harrison on that cover!
I AM confused by the logo, because it looks like GQ 60? Am I out of the loop here? Harrison, of course, is well past 60. Is GQ 60? Now, I’m the one that feels like an old foogey.
The incredibly private Ford definitely did NOT like Fisher going public with their affair, and I have no doubt he’s somewhat of his generation, not to mention nearly 40 years on Hollywood’s A list, in terms of beliefs and attitudes, but I still think he’s spot on here to not go into it. I did read Fisher’s not-that-great-sadly book, and I had some mixed feelings myself about the detailed reveal. Like, she’d run out of stuff to sell for books and … Hey, how about this, even though I know Harrison will hate it? Because there was really nothing else there, and it was definitely not up to the standard of how we all KNOW she could write (brilliantly). Though I will add I thought Fisher tried to do it with as little malice as possible, but you could almost see her cringing while writing it at all. Clearly, like Harrison, she still liked getting paid.
Here, Ford says just enough not to be a ‘no comment’ growly jerk. Clearly, he didn’t want to diss a deceased ex-lover/co-star. Impossible position, really.
GQ is sixty. See text to the left of Harrison’s head.
Doh! I guess I really was distracted by good he still looks. LOL.
He didn’t open up the issue so I didn’t think he was obligated to answer.
I don’t know if he could have stopped her from printing what she wanted to write either.
But wasn’t there photos and maybe even video showing him flying over that plane? Maybe I’m misremembering.
Yes, there is, at least, audio, where Ford immediately relays into the tower and calls himself a schmuck for landing on the wrong runway. I think what he means by “wasn’t actually a near miss” is that there wasn’t actually any danger of collision. If I recall correctly, the tower actually says, “it’s not a big deal,” when he first calls in and he responds: “Well, it’s a big deal to me!”
Obviously, it was still a significant error and COULD have been bad in other circumstances, but luckily, as it happened, he wasn’t physically close enough to the other plane that there was ever actually a chance they would hit one another.
I really liked the profile. He’s an interesting person, and I don’t mind crotchety 70-something dude. My dad is crotchety and 74, =) He comes across as… tactful, in a way. I respect that he refused to say one word against Carrie Fisher.
I will always love Harrison Ford. He is referred to as my ‘other husband’.
He just seems like such a down-to-earth dude. Love him. BUT I feel the need to comment on this… Compare that photo of him on the cover of GQ to, say, a recent photo of Jane Fonda. Why why why are men allowed to age so normally? Jane has a great doctor, but she is so pulled and tight and wrinkle-free and lipped-up, etc., that it’s ridiculous. She looks like a 78-year-old woman trying to look like a 50-year-old woman. Ford looks like a 74-year-old man. Period. Drives me nuts.