Harrison Ford Will See You Now

Harrison Ford, legendary actor and sufferer of zero fools, star of Indiana Jones and Star Wars and a million glorious ’90s conspiracy thrillers, is now improbably starring in a TV comedy.

On the Apple TV+ series Shrinking, opposite Jason Segel and Jessica Williams, the 82-year-old plays Paul, the owner of a therapy practice. Paul’s gruffness and no-nonsense style feels not so far away from Ford, or, at least, from his public persona—droll one-liners included.

Ahead of Shrinking season two, which debuts on October 16, Ford spoke to GQ about how close he feels to Paul, whether he misses those thrillers, and that one fit pic you have saved to your phone. (You know the one.)

GQ: Shrinking is your first venture into full-on comedy. It’s also one of your few television roles. What appealed to you about it in the first place?

Harrison Ford: It’s not my first comedy. I mean, I’ve done a lot of comedies in film. It’s my first television thing, maybe, but I have done a lot of things that were branded comedies.

Yes, that’s true. I suppose it’s been billed as your first straight comedy.

Well, and that’s not true either.

It’s sad!

Yeah, so let’s see what else we can debunk while we’re at it. Yeah, no—the show is in fact a blend of comedy and drama that’s quite unusual and striking for its bravery.

Well, what made it something you wanted to sign up for?

The success of the writing. It seems a difficult thing to do, but it was done with grace and charm, and I thought it was successful when I read the script that was given to me by Brett Goldstein. And it was something that I immediately was attracted to because of its success in both the areas of drama and comedy. It was an unusual character for me to play, I thought.

Maybe we can debunk this too: There’s been a lot said about how your character in the show, Paul, is a lot like you, or at least like your public persona. How accurate would you say that is?

Well, as an actor, you really have only your own experience, your own capacity to understand, and you’re stuck with yourself. It’s the chemistry you came with.

I don’t have Parkinson’s disease. There are a lot of elements and details of Paul’s life that are different to mine, but I think he’s a comic character. The humor is written for me—I certainly don’t make this shit up. But I lent my face and my head, so if it looks like me, I guess it must be me.

Harrison Ford as Paul and Jason Segel as Jimmy in Shrinking season two.

When I interviewed Jason Segel last season, we talked about how therapists react to the show. In your experience, what do people say to you about Shrinking when they want to stop and talk about it?

What they have to say is really unusual in my experience. What they have to say is thank you. They say, “Thank you. We love this show.”

They don’t want anything. They don’t want an autograph, they don’t want a picture. They just want to share their pleasure in the experience. That’s something different to what the usual exchange is with a stranger.

How would you describe Paul’s arc in season two?

He’s coming closer to the pressures that are part of the progress of his disease. I think he’s beginning to see that he’s going to have to make changes in his life and accept the reality of his situation. How that plays out is part of the story of the season.

Shrinking is on Apple TV+. Earlier this year, they aired a television remake of your 1990 film Presumed Innocent, and that became a hit. They also made another one of your movies, Mosquito Coast, into a TV series a couple of years ago. Have you watched either? And do you have any thoughts?

No, no. They’re very different versions, I have to assume, from what I’ve heard. No. I take no offense!

Well, speaking of Presumed Innocent, you had a great run of these legal, conspiracy, dad thrillers in the ’90s. That’s a genre I’m very much a fan of. Do you have a favorite of those?

It was a very different period in our culture. It was a very different period in the movie business. There was a discernible zeitgeist, and the movies seemed to capture that.

It was a street that ran both ways—there was a very close connection between movies and the culture. It was a time when many of our extraordinary filmmakers were still working, the Pollacks and Pakulas and even some guys whose names didn’t start with a P. I was lucky enough to have come up in that period of time, and so I got the chance to work with those guys. To me, that was the extraordinary thing about that time—that I had these incredible guys to work with. It was a great period of my life and I’m really grateful for it.

Those movies keep coming up in the cultural conversation as examples of a type of film Hollywood doesn’t make anymore—stand-alone, smart movies for adults. Do you miss doing them at all, or do you have any thoughts about the fact that they’ve all but disappeared?

Actually I feel bad for us. I feel bad that we don’t have these stories around us in the world.

I mean, it seems this is a particularly bizarre period of human history, I believe. I certainly hope. I hope that we’ll get through it and begin talking to each other instead of at each other. We will begin to work our way through the international issues and the political issues and all this shit soup we’re living in.

Shit soup is a way of putting it, for sure.

You can’t sit around talking about how great it was in the past. You’ve just got to make something better in the present. That’s all. I’m not that guy.

Well, speaking of what you’re working on now: You’ve had some pretty funny responses whenever anyone asks you about your Red Hulk movie. Do you have a sense, when you give a quote, that it’s going to take off? Or are you aware that most actors in these movies don’t really talk about them the way you do?

Well, did I do something? What did I say?

Oh, you’ll just brush things off with a cranky, “I don’t know.”

I mean, I don’t know.

Look, I don’t know either!

I mean, this is the Marvel universe and I’m just there on a weekend pass. I’m a sailor new to this town. Show me the way to go home.

I understand the appeal of other kinds of films besides the kind we made in the ’80s and ’90s. I don’t have anything general to say about it. It’s the condition our condition is in, and things change and morph and go on. We’re silly if we sit around regretting the change and don’t participate. I’m participating in a new part of the business that, for me at least, I think is really producing some good experiences for an audience. I enjoy that.

At this point in your career and your life, how do you choose what projects to do? What feels worth your time?

It’s the quality of writing. It doesn’t matter what the genre is. It doesn’t matter whether it’s on television or in movies. It’s the writing, it’s the story, it’s the character, it’s the emotional experience for an audience or for myself. It’s people that I have some feeling that I want to work with, or it’s a quality opportunity.

I suppose I should be sitting on my ass, but I actually love working.

Not to dip back into the past too much, but is there any film you’ve done that, looking back on, you feel like was underappreciated at the time?

Oh, all of them.

No, I mean, your experience is so different to the total sum of cultural history of a movie or a project that you do. You have a personal experience with it and then there’s whatever happens in the business world of it. They don’t always coincide and you don’t always try to make them coincide or to rationalize the experience. There have been films that I’m surprised did not do better than they did. But it is such an unpredictable world that a film comes out into, and reasons for a film’s lack of success may have very little to do with the film itself and it’s just the circumstances under which it was released.

You certainly have to be aware of your business profile, but I always thought when I was working more, and the business was sort of supporting working more, I would do one for them and one for me. That is, I’d do something that I just really wanted to do because of the people involved or the subject matter or the character, and then I’d do one that I think would be a popular success because I think that’s important also.

When times are good and you have those opportunities to choose, you generally choose to do both things.

Francis Ford Coppola, who you worked with on Apocalypse Now and The Conversation, has a new movie out—have you seen Megalopolis yet?

No, I haven’t. I’m curious, but I have not seen it yet.

Outside of movies, I know you’re a big aviation guy. My question is: Do you believe that anyone can learn how to fly a plane?

Oh, anyone can. We could teach monkeys to fly airplanes, and have.

I think yes, anyone can fly a modern airplane. Yes. But why? The question is not if someone could fly, the question is why do they want to fly?

I was asking because I know you’ve been involved in organizations that try to get more young people interested in aviation. So I was curious if you thought it was truly possible for anyone.

It’s a great job and it’s become a field where there’s a great demand for pilots. We’ve been talking about the failure to train American pilots. America trains more foreign pilots than they do American pilots. I’m not being xenophobic here. It’s not about having to fly with American pilots. It’s just that we’ve known for a long time that we needed to train more pilots, and we have done that successfully now. Pilots are making a wonderful living when, 15 years ago, they weren’t doing so well at the beginning of their careers.

But it’s a great career, and I just encourage people that are interested in it to give it a go.

This is GQ, so I have to ask you one fashion question. There’s this photo of you at the Cannes Film Festival in 1982, where you’re wearing blue shorts and a blue sweater. It’s become this sort of shining-star inspirational outfit for menswear enthusiasts. Are you aware of this?

I think I’m going to be ill.

Do you remember anything about this outfit?

I’ve seen this picture.

Ford in his (in)famous sweater-and-shorts combo at the Cannes Film Festival in 1982.

Not a fan?

I’ve grown out of it.

Okay, okay. You were also way ahead of the curve with the earring. Pretty much every guy I know has a little earring now.

You know the story. I’d just had lunch with Jimmy Buffett and Ed Bradley. That’ll do it to you every time.

You’re one of the last few people on earth who can be thought of as a genuine movie star. There’s been a lot of talk lately about the “death of the movie star” and that there are no more being made. How true do you think that is?

Oh, I think it’s rubbish.

I don’t think the question is whether or not there are any movie stars. There’s wonderful actors coming up every day. Whether or not they become movie stars is really not the point. If movies need stars, they will find them. I’ve never fucking understood being a movie star. I’m an actor. I tell stories. I’m part of a group of people who work together, collaborate on telling stories. I’m an assistant storyteller. That’s what I am.