Harrison Ford ran into exec who said he had ‘no future’ years later

Ford’s full speed ahead.

Harrison Ford has no plans to retire — even suggesting he chose the acting route for that very reason.

“No. That’s one of the things I thought was attractive about the job of an actor, was that they need old people, too, to play old people’s parts,” the “Star Wars” actor, 83, told Variety in an interview published Wednesday.

After decades in Hollywood, Ford finally got his first Emmy nomination this year, for the AppleTV+ show “Shrinking,” where he plays Dr. Paul Rhoades, a therapist who has Parkinson’s disease. 

“I don’t think there’s anything competitive about creativity, and I don’t understand the need to compare and contrast one person’s work to another’s,” he said of his nomination. “If you like it, you like it; if you don’t like it, look at something else.”

The “Indiana Jones” star is “grateful” for the recognition, however.

“But I would have done what I did — and I’ll do what I’m doing — regardless of whether it’s deemed worthy of mention or not,” he explained. “Because it’s what I do. It’s what I love doing. I love telling stories. I love pretending to be somebody else.” 

Michael J, Fox will be in “Shrinking” Season 3, which doesn’t have a premiere date, yet. The actor, 64, revealed in 1998 that he has Parkinson’s.

Ford says that it was “essential” to talk to Fox about the disease, as Ford’s character struggles with it. 

“Michael’s courage, his fortitude and his grace, more than anything else, is on full display,” Ford told Variety.

“He’s a very smart, very brave, noble, generous, passionate guy, and an example to all of us, whether we’re facing Parkinson’s or not. You cannot help but recognize how amazing it is to have such grace.”

Watching the “Back to the Future” star let him “inform” himself about his character more.

“[But] more than that, he allows me to believe that Paul could believe that he could be adequate to the challenge,” he said. “The truth is that we can’t be f—ing around with this just to make a joke or anything. Parkinson’s is not funny. And I want to get it right. It’s necessary to be correct with what we do in respect of the challenge that Parkinson’s represents, and that we don’t use it for its entertainment value.”

Ford rose to fame in the 1970s, in the “Star Wars” franchise. When asked about improvising Han Solo’s famous response, “I know,” after Leia tells him she loves him in “The Empire Strikes Back,” he recalled, “I was supposed to say, ‘I love you too,’ and I thought that was a little un-Han Solo-ish. I thought it was a little banal. So I said no, and [director] Irvin Kershner agreed with me.”

The actor added that “Star Wars” creator George Lucas was “not so sure,” and made Ford sit next to him the first time they screened the film in front of an audience.

“They laughed, but it was a good laugh, so we kept it in,” he recalled.

Ford had a “special relationship” with his co-stars Mark Hamill, 73, and Carrie Fisher, who died in 2016 at age 60. 

“Carrie had a very inspired wit and very special manner. She’s also very smart, very funny. Both of them were dear friends — are dear friends,” he told Variety. 

After “Star Wars,” Ford had a small role in the 1979 classic “Apocalypse Now.” 

“I went down to the Philippines and shot my part of it right after one of the ‘Star Wars’ movies, and when George Lucas first saw the movie, he didn’t know the character was me, even though he was named Lucas,” he told the outlet. “An Easter egg, I now understand it to be.”

“The Fugitive” actor didn’t always have Hollywood execs who saw his star power, however. He recalled an incident from his early days when he was under contract to Columbia Pictures at the time, “for $150 a week and all the respect that that implies.” 

Ford didn’t name names, but said the exec was the head of the new talent program.

“He told me that I had no future in the business. Which was OK. And then he asked me to get my hair cut like Elvis Presley. That I didn’t go along with,” he quipped. “He thought that ‘Harrison Ford’ was too pretentious a name for a young man.”

Years later, they met again, “across a crowded dining room,” and the unnamed exec sent the “Blade Runner” star “a card on which he’d written, ‘I missed my guess.’”

“I looked around, couldn’t remember which one he was, but then he nodded at me and smiled, and I thought, ‘Oh yeah, I know you.’”

The “Witness” star also reflected on revisiting his iconic Indiana Jones character later in life, in the 2023 movie “Dial of Destiny.” 

“Well, I wanted to see him as an older man facing the consequences of the life that he had lived. But I couldn’t imagine that we were going to end up doing five of them,” he said. “I didn’t expect success. In the movie business, you always go in wanting to be successful, but you don’t always expect to be.”

He did think 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark” would be a hit though.

“I read it very quickly, one time. I’d been asked by George Lucas to go and meet Steven Spielberg, who I didn’t know, and he sent me a script to read. I thought it was great,” he recalled. 

“And then I went to meet Steven, we spent about an hour together and suddenly I had a job.” 

When he’s not acting, Ford is also a pilot. In 2015, he famously sustained multiple injuries when a small plane he was piloting lost engine power and crashed on a golf course in Venice, Calif.

“I’ve been through a couple of big accidents that took a while to heal from. This is not something dismissed lightly, but sh-t happens; it was a mechanical issue that was judged to be beyond my control. If I’d been at fault, I would have taken another direction,” he told Variety. “But I don’t think it informs my life on a day-to-day basis now that I’ve recovered sufficiently from the physical effects.”