Harrison Ford, 83, reveals real reason why he will never retire

Hollywood legend Harrison Ford says he has no plans to retire — even suggesting he chose the acting profession for that very reason.

“No. That’s one of the things I thought was attractive about the job of an actor, was that they need old people, too, to play old people’s parts,” the Star Wars actor, 83, said in a new interview.

Harrison is celebrating more success and another accolade ticked off and his new chat came a few months after he pulled out of the Oscars due to illness.

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After decades of making great work playing the likes of Han Solo in Star Wars and Indiana Jones, he finally got his first Emmy nomination this year, for the AppleTV+ show “Shrinking,” where he plays Dr. Paul Rhoades, a therapist who has Parkinson’s disease.

He modestly told Variety magazine: “I don’t think there’s anything competitive about creativity, and I don’t understand the need to compare and contrast one person’s work to another’s. If you like it, you like it; if you don’t like it, look at something else. I’m grateful, but I would have done what I did — and I’ll do what I’m doing — regardless of whether it’s deemed worthy of mention or not. Because it’s what I do. It’s what I love doing. I love telling stories. I love pretending to be somebody else.”

He had been working with Michael J. Fox in Season 3 which just finished filming, and Harrison’s character, Paul, has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Ford says that it was "essential" to talk to Fox as Paul continues to deal with his disease.

“Michael’s courage, his fortitude and his grace, more than anything else, is on full display. He’s a very smart, very brave, noble, generous, passionate guy, and an example to all of us, whether we’re facing Parkinson’s or not. You cannot help but recognise how amazing it is to have such grace. So he gives me both a physical representation of the disease to inform myself with, but more than that, he allows me to believe that Paul could believe that he could be adequate to the challenge. The truth is that we can’t be fucking around with this just to make a joke or anything. Parkinson’s is not funny. And I want to get it right. It’s necessary to be correct with what we do in respect of the challenge that Parkinson’s represents, and that we don’t use it for its entertainment value.”

Ford has overcome his own difficulties which have affected his acting, crashing his plane on a golf course in 2015 in an accident which was described as near-fatal, in March 2015.

Harrison said: “Did it have an impact? I suppose it did. I’ve been through a couple of big accidents that took a while to heal from. This is not something dismissed lightly, but s**t happens; it was a mechanical issue that was judged to be beyond my control. If I’d been at fault, I would have taken another direction. But I don’t think it informs my life on a day-to-day basis now that I’ve recovered sufficiently from the physical effects.”

Harrison also spoke about how America has changed and seems less “banal and safe” with Trump in charge.

He said: “The pendulum doth swing in both directions, and it’s on a healthy swing to the right at the moment. And, as nature dictates, it will swing back.

But currently the issue is not who we are, but that we’re not who we used to be because we’ve been purposefully disaggregated into serviceable political units. And that has caused the middle to become frayed and tenuous, and the middle is where we belong. Not because it’s banal and safe, but because it’s fair. Compromise is fair and honest.

“In politics and in life, you don’t always get what you want, but you get what you get and you don’t get upset. They teach us that in kindergarten, but they also teach you to fight for what you think is right.

Now, because we’ve been disaggregated in this way, we’re having a hard time finding commonality. But if you look at the economy, you’ll figure out where the commonality is — it’s where it always was: Rich get richer, and poor get poorer. And that ain’t exactly right.”

* The full interview with Harrison Ford is available to read at variety.com

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