Harrison Ford stole the show at last year's SAG Awards by hilariously photobombing his “Shrinking” co-star Jessica Williams’ “I Am an Actor” monologue. But on Sunday night, at the newly-renamed Actor Awards ceremony, the cinema icon had the spotlight all to himself as he accepted the SAG-AFTRA’s Life Achievement Award.
It’s the latest prize celebrating Ford’s illustrious six-decade career, where he’s played everyone from smuggler turned hero Han Solo in “Star Wars” to the adventurous archeology professor Indiana Jones, as well as CIA analyst Jack Ryan to former cop (and maybe-replicant) Rick Deckard in the “Blade Runner” movies, plus a couple of U.S. presidents.
“I’m here to celebrate one of the greatest actors of all time — Leo DiCaprio,” Woody Harrelson joked, taking the stage to present Ford with the award during the ceremony, which streamed live on Netflix. “You have more talent in your little finger … than I have in my little finger. Of all the actors in the world, you’re one of them. Everyone in the industry … knows you.”
(If you’re wondering how Harrelson got roped into this introduction, Harrelson joked that Ford asked him to present after his “1923” co-star Helen Mirren turned him down and former Vice President Kamala Harris was unavailable. In truth, Harrelson and Ford are friends.)
“Harrison is a true Renaissance man, an iconic actor, a distinguished pilot and a master carpenter who built his own home. I don’t know how to work the coffee machine, and it’s a French press,” Harrelson joked at the end of his lengthy monologue. “There’s an indescribable energy he brings to everything he does and every moment he’s on screen. And this is just a glimpse of that gritty, unforgettable magnetism.”
After a clip reel of Ford’s iconic career played, the actor kissed his wife, Calista Flockhart, and took the stage to deliver an emotional speech about what his acting career has meant to him.
“I feel incredibly grateful for this kind attention, but to be clear, I’m also quite humbled. I’m in a room of actors, many of whom are here because they’ve been nominated to receive a prize for their amazing work,” Ford began, then quipped, “Well, I’m here to receive a prize for being alive. It’s a little weird to be getting a Lifetime Achievement Award at the half point of my career. It’s a little early isn’t it? I’m still a working actor.”
While Ford is now one of the most successful actors in history, he made a point to note that he wasn’t an overnight success. “I struggled for about 15 years, going from acting job, then carpentry and back to acting, until I finally got a part in a wildly successful film. None of this happened on my own,” he said, growing more verklempt as he credited “Star Wars” visionary George Lucas and “Indiana Jones” helmer Steven Spielberg, as well as the late casting director Fred Roos and Patricia McQueeney, his longtime manager. “They were both incredibly persistent, who supported me at a time when I really needed it. I would not be here without them.”
Ford got his start as an actor in his third year in college. “I was a little lost. I was failing at school. I felt isolated, alone,” he recalled. “Then I found the company of people putting on plays — storytellers. People I once thought were misfits and geeks turned out to be my people.”
It was through acting that Ford found his calling and an identity in pretending to be other people. “The work I do with other actors is one of the great joys of my life,” he said.” My career is built on their work, as well as the work of writers, directors and every single cast member, every crew member I’ve ever been on the set with.”
It’s through these collaborations, Ford explained, that he finally came to know himself and navigate the highs and lows of the entertainment business.
“As actors, we get to live many lives. We get to explore ideas that affirm and elevate our shared experience. The stories we tell have a unique capacity to create moments of emotional connection. They bring us together,” Ford said. “So while we’re all at different stages of our lives and careers in this room, we all share something fundamental: We share the privilege of working in the world of ideas, of empathy, of imagination. Sometimes we make entertainment. Sometimes we make art. Sometimes we’re lucky, we make them both at the same time, and if we’re really fortunate, we also get to make a living doing it.”
As the crowd of A-listers looked on in awe, Ford wrapped up his remarks with an eye toward the future. “Success in this business brings a certain freedom that comes with the responsibility to support each other,” he said. “To lift others up when we can; to keep the door open for the next kid — the next lost boy who’s looking for a place to belong. I’m indeed a lucky guy, lucky to have found my people, lucky to have work that challenges me, lucky to still be doing it. I don’t take that for granted.”
Ford is the 61st recipient of the Life Achievement Award, joining a lineup of entertainment luminaries including Mary Tyler Moore, Sidney Poitier, Betty White, Jane Fonda, Robert De Niro, Elizabeth Taylor and James Earl Jones.
Ford has previously won the Critics Choice Career Achievement Award (2024), an honorary Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival (2023), BAFTA’s Albert R. Broccoli Britannia Award (2015), the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille award (2002) and the AFI Life Achievement Award (2000).
Despite all the accolades, Ford is still celebrating some milestones; for example, he was nominated for his first Emmy last year for his work on the Apple TV series “Shrinking,” where he plays Dr. Paul Rhoades, the eccentric senior member of a psychotherapy practice in Pasadena, who has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
Days after learning the news, Ford sat down with Variety for a candid, career-spanning cover story, where he reflected on everything from his first on-screen role — playing a bellboy in 1966’s “Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round” — to becoming one of the highest-grossing movie stars in history.
“I quickly recognized that I loved telling stories. I liked dressing up and pretending to be somebody else,” Ford said about falling in love with acting in college. “It made me feel truly unseen. Because I was able to hide behind the character, and that was the first freedom I really felt.”
Asked if he could ever see himself retiring from the profession, Ford replied with an emphatic “No.”
“That’s one of the things I thought was attractive about the job of an actor, was that they need old people, too, to play old people’s parts,” he said, with his trademark dry humor.
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