"I can’t explain myself to myself, I just work here."

February 8, 2023 2:37 PM

There’s this thing called “match the hatch.” It’s when there’s a natural bug in the air the fish are eating and you use an artificial fly that’s the same color. I have a protective coloration. I try to blend in. That’s what I do. When I’m getting dressed, if people are going to be wearing a suit, I wear a suit. If people are wearing blue jeans, I’m wearing blue jeans. I’m comfortable in all kinds of company. If they’re serious, I’m serious. They’re not serious, I’m not serious. And if they’re too fucking serious, I’m not serious. (Laughs.) I don’t know why people have an expectation of me. I come in all colors. I don’t know who’s going to show up. But it’s usually me and it looks familiar. from Harrison Ford: “I Know Who the F*** I Am” [The Hollywood Reporter; ungated]
posted by chavenet (25 comments total)

I’m just here to do my job, and my job, at the moment, is to help sell the product. This is what they really pay me for. The acting I’d do for free.

He's a pro.
posted by sjswitzer at 2:53 PM on February 8, 2023 [24 favorites]

Ford’s Shrinking co-star Jason Segel tells THR that Ford is “a craftsman,” noting: “He said to me: ‘I’ve been hired to build a house, and all I want is that when we’re finished, the people who hired me are happy with the house.’ ”

As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
posted by The Tensor at 3:18 PM on February 8, 2023 [31 favorites]

Are you.... are you quoting Chauncey Gardiner? Deep cut, dude.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:38 PM on February 8, 2023 [17 favorites]

Ford is really doing his job. I'm seeing this EVERYWHERE and I don't have any social media.
posted by kittensofthenight at 3:40 PM on February 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Okay, the ending of that was GREAT.

What a great interview. I really enjoyed reading it. And I really enjoy the metaphors that come into Ford's conversation.

Thanks so much for posting this, chavenet!
posted by kristi at 3:53 PM on February 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

Quotes:

When asked what he’d want written on his tombstone, Ford replies: “I wouldn’t want it to be  ‘Harrison Ford, blah-blah-blah, actor.’ I’d settle for ‘Was Useful.’ ” I point out that’s a particularly reductive way to sum up a life, and Ford shoots back: “Well, there’s not a lot of space on a tombstone.”

Well, one time we picked up this woman who was hypothermic on the mountain. She barfed in my cowboy hat but didn’t know who I was until the next day. I stopped doing it because we would be lucky enough to find somebody and then they’d be on Good Morning America talking about “a hero pilot.”

“I don’t even know what a fucking producer does anymore,” Ford gripes. “Or why we need 36 of them around.”

Hear, hear!
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:01 PM on February 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Smart and smartass.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:03 PM on February 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

That was great and made me want to watch the new Indy, which was not something I expected to find myself saying.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:07 PM on February 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

“I don’t even know what a fucking producer does anymore,”

"Captain, have you ever seen this gentleman before ? Met the general or myself ?"

"No, sir. Not personally."
posted by clavdivs at 4:36 PM on February 8, 2023 [6 favorites]

I'm really looking forward to seeing what he does with the role of "Thunderbolt" Ross in the MCU. William Hurt was OK with it, but mostly seemed outflanked by younger and more charismatic actors. I don't see Ford having that problem.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:49 PM on February 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Great interview. He sounds like an all-around great guy. Love that they ended on this philosophical note.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:55 PM on February 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

I've been a little in love with him (parasocially) since I was a teenager and this interview has done nothing but reinforce the feeling.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 5:57 PM on February 8, 2023 [6 favorites]

The ending!
posted by nfalkner at 6:13 PM on February 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

The accompanying video was just painful.
posted by HotToddy at 6:26 PM on February 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

I read a piece in Vanity Fair about Eve Babitz, who was living and writing in LA in the 60-70s. On Harrison Ford in the sack she wrote: “The thing about Harrison was Harrison could fuck. Nine people a day.”

This is so hard to imagine.
posted by waving at 6:48 PM on February 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

The first couple years of my career, I did a bunch of celebrity interviews. They were not good. I have a close friend who writes a couple dozen of these a year, and they're good. This, though, is a great interview. He didn't pander, he didn't shy away from tough questions, and as everyone else is saying, he knew just where to end the story. Just a point or two off for letting Ford duck a couple of the questions, but an A+ from my POV.
posted by martin q blank at 6:52 PM on February 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

Sounds like a regular guy. Given his aversion to being interviewed, that may just be what he intended.
posted by dg at 9:05 PM on February 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Back when there were print magazines:
Esquire used to do a thing where the last page of each issue was an interview feature titled 'What I've Learned'.

It would be some established person contributing a single page of these pithy couplets in the vein of "The studio pays me to promote the movie. The acting part I'd do for free."

Anyway: for a year or two, there was a magazine called POV, whose target audience/approach was 'aspiring to Esquire, but you're still in your early 20s and driving a shit car'.
Their copycat was 'When I Was 25'; established folks reminiscing about their early days.

I'd be interested in reading both the When I Was 25 and his What I've Learned from Harrison Ford.
posted by bartleby at 10:02 PM on February 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

That they took the old man jokes out of the new Indy is an exciting thing to learn. There is NO REASON for that movie to suck but SO MANY WAYS it can suck.
posted by MattD at 5:48 AM on February 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

I have always had a soft spot for grumpy older men who you could tell were secretly marshmallows underneath. Harrison Ford was already pinging my "grumpy marshmallow" trigger back when he was in his 30's; it sounds like he's basically ascended into His True Form.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:30 AM on February 9, 2023 [10 favorites]

Oh - and this video is nine years old but still makes me laugh each and every time:

Harrison Ford reacting to David Blaine doing a magic trick in his kitchen.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:18 AM on February 9, 2023 [8 favorites]

I’ve been hired to build a house, and all I want is that when we’re finished, the people who hired me are happy with the house.

Offer does not apply to Return of the Jedi.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:30 AM on February 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

I don’t have a social anxiety disorder. I have an abhorrence of boring situations. I was shy when I first went onstage — I wasn’t shy, I was fucking terrified. But that’s not social anxiety. That’s being unfamiliar with the territory.

I absolutely love this. I've been thinking recently about how uncomfortable I am with the classic introversion/extraversion labels—or not uncomfortable so much as convinced that they're not as blanket-applicable as a lot of people presume. I'm typically a huge fan of social stimulation, but struggle with group environments and new environments, and I think the two reasons Ford gives here are basically why: I get agitated when I'm bored, and unfamiliar territories are terrifying till I find my sea legs.

Not that this was the big takeaway of the interview, but it feels validating to hear someone this renowned articulate my internal feelings this precisely.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 9:02 AM on February 9, 2023 [13 favorites]

I watched him on the Today Show last week and then read this piece. He deflects and jokes and deflects, and very rarely opens up -- but that last response feels 100% truthful, and his earlier glibness makes it hit ever harder.

Good interviewer.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:12 AM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

I have a free trial of Apple TV+ (I keep finding free trials, so I either have it for a few months, or I don't) so I watched the current episodes of "Shrinking." The review where they said that there was too much Jason Segel and not enough Harrison Ford? Very true. He's really good in it (I also would like more Jessica Williams and was happy to see Wendie Malick, even briefly.)
posted by 41swans at 10:30 AM on February 9, 2023 [1 favorite]