Watching an interview with Harrison Ford is like watching George Lucas’s first feature film, THX-1138. You practically have to stab yourself with a pin to keep awake.
Recently scanning stories on the ‘Net, I came across a story on Movieline called “Harrison Ford’s Long History of Hating Star Wars.”
Mike Ryan, who is also a contributor for Vanity Fair, writes, “I’ve heard through the grapevine more than once that Ford is not a fan of the subject of Star Wars.
“…I was told that before the 30th anniversary part for The Empire Strikes Back, Ford was sarcastically trying to build excitement amongst people he would meet by promising, ‘The guy in the dog suit will be there.'”
On The Onion’s list of 17 Notoriously Prickly Interview Subjects, Ford came in third among other great misanthropes of the 20th century like Billy Bob Thornton, Lou Reed, Gene Simmons, Tommy Lee Jones, and the man so inarticulate he makes Rodney Bingenheimer look like Mark Twain, Robert DeNiro.
This article also warned any prospective Ford interviewer, “Never ask him about Han solo or Indiana Jones, and certainly don’t ask about them in the same question. And definitely don’t open with that question, either, because things will go downhill from there.”
In master interviewer Lawrence Grobel’s book, The Art of the Interview, more than one fellow journalist complained about how trying to interview Ford about anything or get anything quotable out of him is mission impossible.
Grobel apparently found this out when he interviewed Ford himself, who was very guarded, bland, testy where anything personal came up, but straight forward on one subject: Why he’s not a good interview.
“I’m just a simple guy who doesn’t have the much to say and is not that interested in hearing it back…Certainly I reflect on my life, but I don’t feel I owe it to anybody to share my reflections on myself. And I don’t feel that I have either the right or the responsibility to speak about a lot of issues that I don’t know enough about.”
Funny enough, Ford, a former carpenter, was very articulate when Grobel asked him why screen doors don’t work:
“Probably because the weight of the top and bottom rail is not sufficient to bear the strain put on it by the pneumatic door closing. Best to go with a solid bottom half, the dogs and kids won’t kick it in to start with, and you’ll have more meat on that middle rail.”
Go figure!
