Harrison Ford - Premiere Magazine

SO, MR. FORD, PLEASE ANSWER THE BURNING QUESTION STEVEN MARTIN JUST POSED AT THE OSCARS: WHAT IS A MOVIE STAR?
Beats the shit out of me. It’s somebody who’s lucky enough to have gotten the kind of role in the kind of film that garners the kind of attention that allows them to have the happy accident of being able to do it again. But the truth is—and I used to get very annoyed when people used this comparison, but now I understand it to be true—you’re not just an actor, you become a brand.

RIGHT—SO YOU ARE HAN SOLO, YOU ARE INDIANA JONES—
(wearily) You are tenacious, courageous, physical…whatever.

AND HOW MANY OF THOSE THINGS ARE YOU, REALLY?
Very few.

YOU DON’T CONSIDER YOURSELF AN ACTION STAR EITHER, DO YOU?
I’m not an action-movie star, as I am often referred to. I have only done one film that really falls into that category, Air Force

One.

WHAT ABOUT THE FUGITIVE AND—
The Fugitive is a character study.

BUT I JUST WATCHED IT, AND SOMETHING HORRIBLE HAPPENS TO YOU EVERY TEN MINUTES….
No—there’s a train crash, and then there’s a dummy that gets thrown out over a dam into the water. That’s all the action there is.

OKEYDOKE, BUT—AND I DON’T MEAN TO PRESUME—IT SEEMS YOU TAKE THE “ACTION STAR” MONIKER AS AN INSULT. WHY?
Not as an insult, but because it’s a mischaracterization, that’s all. There are a lot of films I’ve done—Like the Tom Clancy films—that have action, but they’re not “action films.”

AND YOU JUST WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. OKAY. ABOUT YOUR LATEST, HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE, WITH JOSH HARTNETT, YOU’VE SAID THAT YOU’RE PARTICULARLY PROUD THAT THERE ARE NO SPECIAL EFFECTS IN THE FILM. BUT, HEY, DUDE, AREN’T YOU A PIONEER OF THE BLUE SCREEN?
[chuckles] I did appear in a lot of it in the Star Wars movies and others, but I think in some ways we’ve come too far: The audience is placed in a world they know doesn’t exist, and very quickly you get inured to it and don’t give a shit.

YEAH, IT’S LIKE ‘COOL PICTURE, BUT—
—but then, “I’m sorry, I thought there was a story here somewhere. Oh, whoops! There isn’t any, I get it, I get it.” [smiles]

YEAH-SORTA LIKE THE LAST TWO STAR WARS MOVIES. BUT I WON’T MAKE YOU TRASH THEM—AFTER ALL YOUR STAR WARS FILMS ARE GREAT. EXCEPT, OF COURSE, THE ONE WITH THOSE LOATHSOME EWOKS.
I hated ‘em, too—it was like a teddy bear prom.

OF COURSE, THOSE FILMS AND THE INDIANA JONES SERIES HAVE MADE YOU, AT 60, PERHAPS THE MOST COMMERCIALLY SUCCESSFUL ACTOR EVER.
I don’t know if that’s true—I don’t know where you’d go to find something like that. But I never had an ambition to be well-known—I thought I was gonna be a character actor and would have been quite happy. But things got out of control.

YEP, AND NOW YOU’RE REVVING IT BACK UP, PLANNING TO DO ANOTHER BIG INDIANA JONES INSTALLMENT. WILL INDY TURN IN HIS WHIP AFTER THIS?
Who knows? It’s been almost 15 years since the last one, and if you take my chronological age and add 15 years to that, it’s like, if we don’t do it again quickly after this one, chances are we won’t do another.

YOU KNOW, YOUR BLOCKBUSTER STATUS HAS MADE IT HARDER FOR YOU TO BE PERCEIVED AS THE SOLID ACTOR YOU ARE. EVER HAVE OSCAR ENVY?
No. There are people that are more likely to be celebrated for their acting skills, and there are other people, who, perhaps, even by nature of their own taste, are less likely to be caught acting and thus, not celebrated. I’m fine with that.

SO WHEN YOU LOOK BACK AT YOUR PHENOM OF A CAREER, WHAT DO YOU SEE?
I see a career of a person that was very slow in taking off, that was grudgingly admitted into the circle, and who has managed to stay alive and find fulfilling work. I’ve had a really interesting job.

YEAH—WHY, YOU’RE “HARRISON FORD”!
(smiles) Whoever the fuck that is.