On Wild Card, well-known guests answer the kinds of questions we often think about but don’t talk about. Harrison Ford talks about being too belligerent to listen to advice in his youth.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Every week, a guest draws a card from NPR’s Wild Card deck and answers a big question about their life. At 83 years old, Harrison Ford is still experiencing firsts, including his first-ever Emmy nomination for his role in “Shrinking” on Apple TV+. He told Wild Card host Rachel Martin about being pitched on the show by its cocreator, Brett Goldstein.
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HARRISON FORD: I read the pilot of “Shrinking” one time. I was doing an Indiana Jones movie, and…
RACHEL MARTIN: Brett Goldstein.
FORD: …Brett Goldstein sent me the script. And then he came to meet me to find out if I was interested or to talk me into it or something like that. Yeah. I opened the door. I said, hi. You’re Brett? Yeah. Hi, nice to see you. I’ll do it.
MARTIN: Didn’t even have a coffee.
FORD: No, but we did have a few scotches after that.
SUMMERS: Ford reflected on his early career in his Wild Card interview.
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MARTIN: What’s a piece of advice you were smart to ignore?
FORD: Every single piece of advice I ever got.
MARTIN: (Laughter) No one ever gave you good advice?
FORD: I don’t know if I got a lot of advice.
MARTIN: Really?
FORD: No. Maybe ’cause I didn’t look like I was interested.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
FORD: But I – when people ask me for advice, and strangely, occasionally, people do…
MARTIN: Yeah, I imagine.
FORD: …The only thing I can say is, whatever it is you want to do, don’t imitate somebody else’s way of getting there. Don’t try and imitate somebody else’s success. You’ve got to find your own path.
MARTIN: How did you have that instinct so early, though? I mean…
FORD: I was belligerent.
MARTIN: Really?
FORD: Yeah. And ignorant, at the same time.
MARTIN: That’s a good combo.
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MARTIN: So you didn’t charm your way through the doors of Hollywood executives?
FORD: Decidedly not.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
FORD: The doors did not fly…
MARTIN: Yeah.
FORD: …Off the hinges when I appeared.
MARTIN: But something was working.
FORD: It was a very strange thing that happened. One, I really didn’t go to movies very much. Two, I didn’t know why I wanted to be an actor. But I discovered acting very late in my college career because I was looking for a class that I could take and get a good grade in, ’cause I was a philosophy and English major, and I never went to class.
MARTIN: So you didn’t have very good grades, I imagine…
FORD: I had…
MARTIN: …In those classes. Yeah.
FORD: …Terrible grades, and I was hanging on by the skin of my teeth. I got thrown out of school four days before graduation – college. The first one in my family to ever have achieved the possibility of graduating from college.
MARTIN: And you blew it within four days?
FORD: Four days before graduation, I was asked to go away and not come back.
MARTIN: So the plan to get a good grade in the drama class didn’t save you from getting kicked out of college?
FORD: You know, that’s the first time I thought about that.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
FORD: It didn’t. It didn’t.
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SUMMERS: You can watch that full conversation with Harrison Ford by following Wild Card with Rachel Martin on YouTube. And the show “Shrinking” is available on Apple TV+.
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