LOS ANGELES — Over the course of 20 months and in the midst of a pandemic, Harrison Ford filmed a sequel to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in England. He filmed a 10-part comedy, ‘Therapy Without Filter’, in California. He herded cattle up a mountain in frigid Montana for “1923,” the most recent prequel to the hit western series “Yellowstone.”
He also celebrated his 80th birthday.
“I’ve been working pretty much back-to-back, which is not what I normally do,” Ford, unshaven, dressed in jeans and boots, said during a recent interview. “I don’t know how it happened, but it happened.”
It’s been 45 years since Ford leaped from the screen as Han Solo in the first ‘Star Wars’ film, laying the foundation for a successful career in which he has epitomized some of the most commercially successful film franchises in history. It would seem he has nothing more to prove, but at an age when many of his contemporaries have receded from the public eye, he’s not slowing down, let alone walking away. He is still trying new things: ‘1923’, available via streaming on Paramount +It is his first major role on television.
“I love it,” he said. “I love the challenge and the process of making a movie. I feel at home. It’s what I’ve spent my life doing.”
In ‘1923’, Ford plays weathered and weary rancher Jacob Dutton, great-great-grandfather of John Dutton III, the family patriarch played by Kevin Costner in ‘Yellowstone’. The scale of ‘1923’ is immense—the vistas of the American West, the sweeping aerial shots, the complexity of the characters and stories.
The film ambitions of ‘1923’ have been a pleasant surprise for Ford.
“They keep calling it television,” he said. “But it is so little television. It’s an incredibly ambitious story that he’s telling on an epic scale. The scale of the thing is huge, I think, for television.”
Ford said he accepted the role after Taylor Sheridan, the lead creator behind the “Yellowstone” franchise, took him to her ranch near Fort Worth, Texas, and sketched the character. Ford was intrigued by Duttona grim and stoic rancher who must fight in the last years of his life to protect his land and family.
“The character is not the usual one for me,” said Ford, comparing it to his role as a psychiatrist with Jason Segel in “Unfiltered Therapy,” which debuts this month on Apple TV+. “Never in my life have I gone to a psychiatrist.”
Filming ‘1923’ tested his resilience and his love for the craft. Montana proved to be a punishing place to work; the cast and crew braved blinding blizzards and staggeringly frigid temperatures during 10-hour days spent almost entirely outdoors.
Since Ford’s early days as Han Solo, he’s been leery of being typecast as an action hero. “I don’t want to work for just one audience,” he said.
Then, Ford plays a rancher in “1923” and a therapist in “Unfiltered Therapy,” not long before “The Call of Fate,” his fifth “Indiana Jones” movie, opens in June.
When he started working on “1923,” Sheridan told him to approach it like 10 hour-long movies. “And so I’m sorry,” Ford said. “But we are working at a TV pace. There’s something about movies that allows, you know, a little bit, a kind of luxury of time and right… I don’t think I really want to go too deep into this because, for me, there’s nowhere to go with it.”
“I’m doing the same job,” he said. “It’s just being packaged and distributed in a different way.”
Ford is not a pioneer. He resisted television for many years and, in finally relenting, he’s following in the footsteps of other big box office stars—Costner in ‘Yellowstone’ and Sylvester Stallone in ‘Tulsa King’—who have joined Taylor Sheridan’s TV productions. Still, as she prepared to attend the ‘1923’ premiere in Hollywood, it was clear where her heart lay.
“The important thing is to walk into a dark room with strangers, experience the same thing, and have the opportunity to consider your common humanity,” Ford said. “With strangers. And the music, the sound system is better, right? The darkness is deeper, right? And the fridge is not that close.
Ford paused in his revealing reference to a kitchen appliance from another era: the era in which he grew up. He couldn’t help but laugh at his lapse. “Fridge!” he said.
By: ADAM NAGOURNEY
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6525426, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-01-10 19:40:07
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