The Inspiring and Incredible Story of How Harrison Ford Got His Big Break in STAR WARS
Harrison Ford has described himself as a “late bloomer” while on his journey to massive stardom. At 80 years old, Ford is still one of the most popular and sought-after stars in Hollywood. Over the years he’s worked with some of the greatest directors to have ever lived including George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, and more.
Some of the roles he’s best known for are Han Solo in the Star Wars franchise and Indiana Jones, which is a role he has returned to play one final time in the upcoming film Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Star Wars is the film that launched his acting career into a whole new stratosphere. But, the road to landing that role was a long and hard one and to get there he put in a lot of hard work doing manual labor as a carpenter.
Ford’s journey into acting started when he signed up for a drama class in his senior year at Ripon College to help him deal with how shy he was. That’s where the acting bug bit him and he decided to pursue that as a career.
He started out landing little “extra” roles in a few films before the head of Columbia’s creative affairs department, Jerry Tokofsky, pushed him to the bottom of the hiring list. He was said to have “no future” in Hollywood and as you might imagine, that was rough on him. He ended up becoming frustrated with the quality of roles he was being offered, and that led him to pursue a fallback job to help support his family. That job was a self-taught professional carpenter.
Ford once said of the job: “Through carpentry, I fed my family and began to pick and choose from among the roles offered. I could afford to hold out until something better came along. But I never gave up my ambition to be an actor. I was frustrated but never felt defeated by my frustration.”
It was in the late 60s and early 70s when Ford caught the eye of Hollywood casting director Fred Roos, and as the two became friends, Roos was always trying to boost Ford’s acting career. It was in 1973 when Ford landed the role of Bob Falfa in George Lucas’ classic film American Graffiti. While the film was a success, it didn’t really boost his career.
The producer of the film, Francis Ford Coppola, however, started casting him in small roles in films such as The Conversation and Apocalypse Now.
In 1976 when Lucas was casting for his next film, Star Wars, Roos insisted on Lucas hiring Ford as Han Solo but Lucas didn’t initially want to cast him because he was in American Graffiti, and he didn’t want any repeat casting. So, to help move the process ford and get Ford in, the actor was hired to build a door for him in the American Zoetrope offices, where Lucas had set up the casting call to take place. This allowed for Ford and Lucas’ “serendipitous” encounter.
Roos recalls, “Harrison had done a lot of carpentry for me…He needed money, he had kids, he wasn’t a big movie star yet. The day he was doing it, George happened to be there. It was serendipitous.”
When talking about that, Ford Said: "I was actually installing a door for Francis Ford Coppola as a favor to his art director, who had built the door but couldn't find anyone to install it. And I said I'll do it, but I'm only gonna do it at night because I don't want people walking through there while I'm not trying to do the thing. And one morning, in walked, while I was finishing up the door, in walked George with Richard Dreyfuss. George walked in, and it was a surprise, and I thought it was an interview for a new science fiction film. Anyway, we just chatted and said hello."
Ford said in another interview: “George had told our agents he wanted new faces, not the same people from American Graffiti. I was there with my tool belt on, sweeping up, said hello, chatted, and that was it. Later, I was asked by the producer to help them read lines with candidates for all the parts. Don’t know whether I read with people who were reading for Han Solo—can’t remember. I read with quite a few princesses. But there was no indication or forewarning that I might be considered for this part. It was just a favor. And then of course they offered me the part.”
So Roos’ plan worked! Star Wars ended up launching his career, so playing the long game of patience and hard work worked out for Ford. Ford later teased Lucas by saying that he had not planned on landing the role in Star Wars as carpentry was his priority back then. He teased, “No, no, that didn’t happen…I wouldn’t just sit around waiting for you.”
Carpentry turned out to be a great thing for Ford and by building doors for famous Hollywood moguls, he managed to find the success as an actor that he was looking for. Ford offered his thoughts on success saying: “To me, success is choice and opportunity.”