In a recent commencement speech, Harrison Ford reflected on his 15-year fight to make ends meet before Star Wars. Speaking candidly about his life before the galaxy far, far away found him, his remarks moved a room of graduates and quickly rippled outward.
Harrison Ford says ‘acting was not paying bills’ before landing Star Wars role
Harrison Ford recently revealed that acting alone couldn’t cover his family’s expenses in the years before Star Wars gave him his big break. While receiving an honorary Doctor of Arts and Humane Letters from Arizona State University, the veteran actor looked back on the grueling 15 years it took to rise to Hollywood stardom during his commencement speech.
Ford shared with the graduating class on Monday that sixty-five years ago, at Ripon College in Wisconsin, he was indifferent about his future and made bad choices. Seeking an easy grade as a junior, he had enrolled in drama to work backstage.
“My classmates were people I had previously discounted as geeks and misfits. But I soon realized I was a geek and a misfit,” he acknowledged, amid applause from the ASU audience. “I had found my fit. These were my people.”
In 1964, Ripon’s theater department head brought the 22-year-old Ford to Los Angeles for work in professional theater. Soon after, he signed with Columbia Pictures, launching his Hollywood career. “But acting was not yet paying the bills,” said Ford, who was already a married father then. “I was supporting my growing family with carpentry jobs, another way to put food on the table. I only took acting jobs when the part challenged me.”
For nearly 15 years, he kept building sets and cabinets while landing only four or five roles, like American Graffiti in 1973 and The Conversation in 1974. Three years after that, the path finally led to Star Wars. Concluding his speech, Harrison Ford, who now stars alongside Jason Segel in Apple TV+’s Shrinking, urged the young graduates to use their own unique talents to build a better future.
Originally written by Sibanee Gogoi on Mandatory.
