Harrison Ford's Advice for Flying in 'Star Wars:' 'Make S--t Up!'
For years, Harrison Ford has been the resident curmudgeon of the Star Wars cast: grumbling about Ewoks, complaining about George Lucas’s dialogue, and even expressing a death wish for his beloved character Han Solo. Now that Ford, 73, is reprising his iconic role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, he seems to have warmed to the franchise. But unlike some of his colleagues, he refuses to treat it like scripture. In an interview for Entertainment Weekly’s new Star Wars-centric issue, Ford described a moment on set when his co-star Oscar Isaac, who plays pilot Poe Dameron, asked for Ford’s advice on steering a spacecraft. The older actor’s reply?
“I said, ‘Just make s–t up!’” Ford told EW. “I mean, it’s a movie, man. It’s space. You don’t fly in space the way you do in an atmosphere.”
At the same time, Ford recalled having a similar question for director George Lucas when he shot the first Star Wars film in 1976. “I don’t know any more than George knew how to fly the Millennium Falcon when I first got in,” said Ford. When he asked Lucas, “How do you fly this, George?”, the director unhelpfully replied, “Well, I don’t know, you just flip switches, and, errrr…”
Related: Harrison Ford Finally Likes ‘Star Wars,’ Praises 'The Force Awakens’
Since Ford figured out how to make the flying look authentic, it’s a safe bet that Isaac did, too. But Ford also told EW that Han Solo, while older and wiser in The Force Awakens, still has plenty to learn. “We spend a lot more time [in the movie] on his failure to master basic skills, like accounting. And accounting for his own behavior,” said the actor. “There’s a lot of the rogue still left in Solo. Some things don’t change.”
Speaking of things that don’t change, Ford still has a bone to pick with Lucas about his original-trilogy dialogue. (The actor famously told the director, “George, you can type this s–t, but you sure can’t say it.”) “Well, you try and say, ‘It takes a few minutes for the navicomputer to calculate the coordinates,’” Ford told EW. “Move your mouth, George, while you’re typing! It’ll help!”
Related: Decoding the 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Teasers and Trailers
Try as he might, though, Ford couldn’t escape the excitement around the Star Wars: Force Awakens trailer, which debuted during Monday Night Football in October. Though Ford told EW, “I was trying to watch the damn football game!”, he admitted to viewing the trailer with his wife Calista Flockhart and their teenage son. “We were in the middle of preparing dinner and doing homework, and… just watching it over our shoulder,” he said.
Watch Harrison Ford discuss ‘The Force Awakens’ on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’
