Harrison Ford doesn't have any retirement plans
The 83-year-old star believes actors are fortunate in that there's no strict time limit on their working life.
Asked if he'll ever retire, Harrison told Variety: "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."
Harrison has worked with some of the biggest names in the movie industry - including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola - during the course of his career. And the Hollywood icon feels fortunate to have worked through the 70s and 80s, too.
He said: "You're talking about a very exciting time in the movie business. In the late '70s and through the '80s, there was this group of young filmmakers, all of them wildly independent, both in spirit and in mind, who wanted to make their own films their own way, and they all burst upon the scene at much the same time.
"I was very lucky to lump in with those guys because I was of a youthful age. But I never expected to be anything more than a character actor. I never wanted to be anything more than somebody that made a living as an actor."
Harrison played Han Solo in the Star Wars franchise, but he wasn't sure whether the original film would lead to a sequel.
The veteran movie star explained: "I didn't really know whether there was going to be another film when we started, and because I didn't know whether there would be another film — and because I only had the script from the first one to consider — I didn't sign the sequel deal, which turned out to be to all of our advantage."
Harrison also played the titular character in the Indiana Jones franchise, and the actor was always convinced that the first film would become a huge success.
Asked how he felt reprising the character for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Harrison explained: "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. 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.
"I did expect the first film would be wildly successful. 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. And then I went to meet Steven, we spent about an hour together and suddenly I had a job."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Perth Now
2 hours ago
- Perth Now
Liam Neeson lashes out at tardy actors
Liam Neeson has hit out at actors who are late to set. The 73-year-old actor revealed he has heard 'disturbing stories' about stars who show up late for filming and insisted he would 'never work with those people'. He told Rolling Stone magazine: 'That's very important. I hear disturbing stories about actors and actresses who are very gifted, but show up on the set two, three, four hours late. I would never work with those people. I think it's so insulting. You have a crew of like 60, 70, 80 people waiting for you. The very least you can do is give them the respect by turning up on time.' Meanwhile, Liam has pivoted to comedy with his new movie Naked Gun and admitted he thinks his action hero days are now behind him. He told Variety: 'The first Taken was 18 years ago, I was 54. Feels like a lifetime ago. I still get offered the occasional one. But I'm 73, for f***'s sake. I don't want to insult audiences if they're watching whole fight scenes and it's not me. I just wouldn't do it. Up until recently, I liked doing my own fight stuff. But I don't want to be doing that stuff with a Zimmer frame or walking stick. Sure, there might be another one out there, but nothing definite on the horizon.' However, there is one genre of movie he will never do. He said: 'I'm a big believer in writers and the script. That's the foundation stone, no matter what the genre. Except horror. I won't do horror.'
Perth Now
a day ago
- Perth Now
Dave Franco and Alison Brie 'handed out weed pens at party'
Dave Franco and Alison Brie handed out "weed pens" at their wedding party. The 40-year-old actor and Alison, 42, tied the knot in 2017, and Dave has recalled proposing to the brunette beauty during a trip to Big Sur in California. He told Variety: "We were going to Big Sur, one of our favourite places on Earth. I decided I was going to do it there. And I didn't have the ring." Alison then said: "He knew that I wanted our friend Irene Neuwirth to design my ring." Dave put a lot of time and thought into his proposal. The actor shared: "The day before the trip, I figured I should have a placeholder ring so I could at least put something on her finger. I went to an antiques store down the street from us and got what I thought was a cool, old ring. "We first met at Mardi Gras in New Orleans years ago, and Alison had this silver mask on her head the entire weekend. I had written my phone number on the mask, and at the end of the trip, I took it and hid it. She didn't know I'd kept the mask all these years." Alison continued: "He calls me out onto the patio. I turn around and Dave's on one knee in a Zorro mask, holding a weird box with an old rock in it. I had no idea what was going on." The Hollywood duo wanted to have a small, lowkey wedding ceremony, but they still decided to throw a party with their friends. Dave shared: "We wanted people to let loose and go crazy. Much more than they did. We were handing out weed pens, which just led to everyone bringing home multiple to-go pizzas." Dave and Alison always had a clear idea of what they wanted their wedding day to look like. And the actor admits that it was one of the best days of their lives. He said: "Neither of us were ever big into weddings. Like, this was not a super important thing to us. At the end of the day, we did it exactly how we wanted. In a cheesy way, that ended up being one of the best days of our lives."
Perth Now
3 days ago
- Perth Now
Ralph Ineson 'felt like a Formula One car' in The Fantastic Four: First Steps costume
Ralph Ineson "felt like a Formula One car" during the making of The Fantastic Four: First Steps. The 55-year-old star plays villain Galactus in the new Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) blockbuster and explained the lengths that the crew had to go to keep him cool in his heavy costume. Ralph told Collider: "For the actor, it's like working in a huge rubber suit in a sauna, but you're not allowed to sweat. "So, I have a whole pit crew around me – I'm like a Formula One car – with people taking off bits of my costume in between takes to bring my body temperature down, and then bring it back on for the next take. "People are shoving air conditioning units up the back of my armour to keep my body temperature down. So, it's a really strange sight. There are eight people buzzing around me like a Formula One pit crew." Ralph explained that the "strangest" part about starring in the film is seeing his character recreated in toy form for merchandise. The Harry Potter star said: "It's really crazy. The maddest one for this, for me, is the popcorn bucket of Galactus' head, which is about this big. It's enormous! That's kind of surreal. "I saw a picture of a toy that's being released, which is kind of to scale to the normal toys, so the Galactus one is about two and a half feet tall. So, yeah, it's very strange to see yourself in toy form." Ineson explained that there was some dialogue from Galactus that he was disappointed to see absent from the flick's final cut, but he respects director Matt Shakman's editorial decisions. He said: "From my point of view, there's no kind of sections, but there were various versions, dialogue-wise, of certain speeches, and there were a couple of phrases that I particularly liked that I would have liked to have stayed in that were replaced by other ones. "But that's not my job. I don't do those things. That's Matt and editors." The Fantastic Four: First Steps also stars Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/ Invisible Woman and she has confessed to becoming a "nerd" about her alter ego. She told Variety: "I'm such a Sue nerd. "There was something so allegorical about her. She was called Invisible Girl. Then Psycho-Man comes and disrupts everything, and she has a meeting with her own dark side in Malice. She comes back, and she renames herself Invisible Woman. So she transforms from a girl to a woman. "There's something about meeting the hardest parts of yourself in Malice that felt extremely poignant to me. I'm really hopeful I might be allowed to be Malice at some point for her." Vanessa previously described how she loves to take on "challenging" roles. The Crown actress told TheTalks: "I really like pushing past my limits in that way — I love it. "When I read something and go, 'Uh, I don't know how I am going to do this,' then I know I should do it. I don't think it feels as challenging when you read a script and go, 'I know exactly how I am going to do this.'"
