Harrison Ford

Interview, June, 2003 by Calista Flockhart

CF: How did you feel about Michael Moore's speech at the Oscars?

HF: [laughs] It made me laugh.

CF: It didn't shock you? Did you expect it?

HF: I fully expected it. That's Michael Moore. That's his nature.

CF: You don't think he embarrassed himself?

HF: No. Not at all. I thought, That's why we have a Michael Moore.

CF: Do you agree with him?

HF: I agree with him to a certain extent. But I think in this particular situation, there are a lot of details that are important to consider. Strategic details.

CF: What do you think is the primary factor that is motivating the war in Iraq?

HF: Economics. I think economics is always the issue in war, at the root of it. And that is from both sides.

CF: I agree. Right... So, at the end of this movie, there's an exquisitely executed fight scene. How involved were you in choreographing it?

HF: Pretty involved, because it's really a question of what your physical capacities are and how much you feel comfortable with. I wanted to keep it within the limits of what I could do, so that it was my face rather than the back of a stuntman's head. And to keep it kind of gritty and real. I worked with the stunt coordinator, and he showed what we'd come up with to Ron, and he added his input, and there we were.

CF: Do you ever get hit filming a fight scene? I mean, really hit?

HF: Normally I end up getting tagged once or twice-somebody catches the tip of your nose or you catch the tip of somebody's nose. There are all sorts of interesting, ways to get hurt on a movie. I actually pulled my hamstring on this one in a sort of bizarre fashion: I was crouched behind a car, shooting at somebody, and I had to pop up and run across the street. As I popped up, I somehow pulled my hamstring.

CF: Did you do all your own stunts on this movie?

HF: Stunts?

CF: Well, there's the bike scene.

HF: True. No. I did the bike scene up to the point where I had to crash into the car door and go over the top of it. I'm glad I didn't do that: The guy who did got hurt pretty badly.

CF: Your love interest in the movie is the beautiful Lena Olin. And she plays a psychic. Do you believe in psychics?

HF: No. I had an experience where some psychic was employed to divine my future, and it was shockingly accurate, but-

CF: -So why don't you believe?

HF: I just can't.

CF: But if she was accurate, I don't understand.

HF: Well, some things you aren't meant to understand, and one of them is the workings of the mind.

CF: Do you believe in the paranormal? HF: [clears his throat] Uh, no. No. I think there are weird things that go on that we don't quite understand, but they don't fall into the area of talking to dead people who've passed over and stuff like that.

CF: When you're engaged in an argument, can you readily admit that you're wrong? HF: [long pause, then both explode with a long burst of laughter] I told you I wouldn't discuss my personal life! [both laugh]

CF: Is it true that you once crash-landed a Bell helicopter and didn't even have an adrenaline rush?

HF: Where do you get this shit? [laughs] Actually, it is. [both laugh] I was too busy on my way down to produce any adrenaline. But it wasn't a crash landing. It was a training accident. A practice autorotation turned into a real autorotation when the helicopter's power didn't come back as I anticipated. Although it twisted up the helicopter pretty badly, it doesn't quite qualify as a crash landing.