At 80, Harrison Ford has had more than 50 years of work in show business, seeing global acclaim, Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, lifetime achievement recognition, and just under $8 billion worldwide at the box office. But if he had his way, Harrison Ford would have never been a movie star. Maybe he didn’t want to remain a carpenter his entire life, but the marquee attention was far from being on Ford’s radar.
In a new People cover story, Harrison Ford said of his movie star status, “I never thought that I would be a leading man…I really was just hoping I could make a living as an actor and not have to supplement my income with some other side hustle…I thought I would be lucky to have a character part on a regular TV show…No one ever believes this, but I never wanted to be rich and famous,” he says. “I just wanted to be an actor.” Fortunately for moviegoers, a combination of onscreen talents and a passion for carpentry landed him right where he was destined to be: on the big screen. After all, it was while doing work in Francis Ford Coppola’s office that he met George Lucas, who cast him in 1973’s American Graffiti and a few other movies whose titles we can’t quite recall.
Harrison Ford has been a bonafide movie star for five decades, bringing at least two of cinema’s greatest heroes – Indiana Jones and Han Solo (and certainly John Book from Witness and Jack Ryan are worthy of being added to the discussion) – to life. And even though he was de-aged for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, he has no problems with working into and past his 70s. “I don’t want to be young again…I was young, and now I enjoy being old…You are certainly physically diminished by age but there are wonderful things about age—richness of experience, the full weight of all the time you’ve been spending getting to being old— and there’s a certain ease in it for me.”
Even with the age – and plenty of duds that come with such an extensive filmography – Harrison Ford’s time as a movie (and yes, TV) star doesn’t seem to be over just yet. In addition to one last outing as Indy, he’ll also be joining the MCU with next year’s Captain America: Brave New World (replacing the late William Hurt), in addition to doing a stellar job on Apple TV+’s Shrinking.
What are your top Harrison Ford movie or TV performances? Rank ’em below!