After becoming a leading man due to the success of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, which came out in 1981, Harrison Ford was shocked when his career took off.
“I never thought that I would be a leading man,” the 80-year-old said in a new interview. “I really was just hoping I could make a living as an actor and not have to supplement my income with some other side hustle… I thought I would be lucky to have a character part on a regular TV show.”
“No one ever believes this, but I never wanted to be rich and famous,” he continued. “I just wanted to be an actor.”
Over the years, the actor has made his mark in Hollywood after appearing in the Indiana Jones flicks, in addition to Star Wars.
“I probably enjoy making movies more now than I ever did,” he noted.
Despite getting older, Ford, who is married to Calista Flockhart, 58, is enjoying this time in his life — even if he does have to deal with ailments here and there.
"I don’t want to be young again,” Ford, who is a father-of-five, said. “I was young, and now I enjoy being old.”
“You are certainly physically diminished by age but there are wonderful things about age — richness of experience, the full weight of all the time you’ve been spending getting to being old — and there’s a certain ease in it for me," he continued.
Recently, Ford, who appears in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, was honored with a Palme d’Or for lifetime achievement at the Cannes Film Festival.
“I was just trying to keep myself composed,” he recalled. “There was very generous applause from the crowd [and] it was positive and humbling and nice.”
“I am very gratified that I still have the opportunities that I have to work, and I owe that to the audience," he said of the special moment.
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Ford spoke with People.
