When a magazine lands an interview an A-lister of the caliber of Harrison Ford, it usually provides plenty of juicy details about their next film projects.
But GQ writer Chris Heath admits in the first paragraph of his cover feature that the actor typically gives terrible interviews—i.e. says very little. (For example, watch Ford’s highly sarcastic but at times, awkwardly wordless interview with Jimmy Fallon here.) So Heath quite hilariously wrote a feature that amounts to a modern-day version of the classic profile “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.”
Amidst one particularly short quote, Ford jokes to Heath that “I don’t have to write sh—,” in terms of the feature that won’t get written if Ford doesn’t speak. Ford then elaborates by saying to Heath, “When you go back and you do your research and you see all this reams of shit that’s been written, there really isn’t anything left to say. Because I haven’t just changed my mind last night. It’s the same old sh—.”
That is anything but the truth, at least in terms of the buzz around Ford. After reprising his role as Han Solo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015—and then subsequently being killed off—he’s now appearing in a sequel to his cult hit, Blade Runner, alongside lead star Ryan Gosling.
Regardless, RealClearLife was able to glean some absolute gems from GQ’s non-feature feature.
-At one point in his career, Ford was asked to change his name. His idea? “Kurt Affair.” Or as Ford says, “The stupidest name I could think of.”
-On how Ford’s like his 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.”
-After starting to tell an anecdote about his 16-year-old son to Heath, Ford stops, saying, “If any reference to him should appear in an interview that I did….he’d kill me. Now. In my sleep.”
-When Ford was learning to be a carpenter before landing the role as Han Solo in the first Star Wars movie, he tells Heath that one day he watched his father cut off his own finger in the basement workshop. He ended up picking up his father’s finger, wrapping it in Kleenex, and pocketing it. He eventually gave it to an ER surgeon. This all happened when he was 16.
-Ford says he’s a fan of Vice TV show, F—, That’s Delicious. “I started watching it, and it’s really, really interesting. Some of it. Just, you know, a distracting and interesting glimpse into somebody else’s world.”
-While filming Blade Runner 2049, Ford and Gosling had an unintentional on-set altercation. “I punched Ryan Gosling in the face,” Ford bluntly tells Heath. “Ryan Gosling’s face was where it should not have been.”
-Of how he came to act in The Force Awakens, Ford said: “It was proposed that I might make another appearance as Han Solo. And I think it was mentioned, even in the first call, that he would not survive. That’s something I’d been arguing for for some period of time, so I said okay.” (Apparently, Ford had originally lobbied for his character to die in 1983’s Return of the Jedi.)
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