Harrison Ford Refuses to Retire From Acting as He Turns 81, Says ‘Indiana Jones’ Exit Is Not Bittersweet: ‘It’s Time For Me to Grow Up’
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Harrison Ford is retiring from playing Indiana Jones after the upcoming “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” but that doesn’t mean Ford himself is leaving Hollywood behind. Far from it. During an upcoming interview on CNN and Max’s “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” (set to air and stream on June 23), Ford laughs at the idea of retiring from acting. Next month, he will turn 81 years old.
When asked if he plans to retire, Ford replied, “I don’t. I don’t do well when I don’t have work. I love to work. I love to feel useful. It’s my jones. I want to be helpful”
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Why does Ford still have the acting bug as he gears up to turn 81 years old? “It is the people you get to work with,” he said. “The intensity and the intimacy of collaboration. It’s the combined ambition somehow forged from words on a page. I don’t plan what I want to do in a scene. I don’t feel obliged to do anything. I’m naturally affected by things that I work on.”
With “Indiana Jones” winding down, Ford has the Apple TV+ comedy “Shrinking” and the Paramount+ drama “1923” heading into second seasons once the writers strike concludes. He’s also spent recent weeks in Atlanta filming the Marvel tentpole “Captain America: Brave New World,” in which he stars as U.S. president Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.
While age is but a number for Ford, he really wanted his current stage of life to be felt in his fifth and final “Indiana Jones” movie. He told Chris Wallace that the entire allure of coming back to play Indiana Jones was to embrace his age and not make it a joke.
“I wanted it to be character driven,” Ford said about his “Dial of Destiny” return. “And I wanted us to confront the question of age straight on. Not to to hide my age, but to take advantage of it in the telling of the story.”
When asked if it’s bittersweet saying goodbye to Indiana Jones, Ford answered: “No. It’s time for me to grow up.”
“Six years ago, I thought maybe we ought to take a shot at making another one,” Ford said. “And I wanted it to be about age because I think that rounds out the story that we’ve told and we brought it to the right place. I mean, the last one ended in kind of a suspended animation. There was not a real strong feeling of the conclusion or the closure that I always hoped for, the roundness and speaking to this issue of age. Not making jokes about it, but but making it a real thing.”
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” opens in theaters June 30 from Disney. New episodes of “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” are available Friday mornings on Max and air at 10pm ET/PT on CNN.
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