(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Tue 14 October 2025 14:45, UK
It’s a rite of passage for every big-name actor to play at least one real-life person in their career, which Harrison Ford has taken more literally than virtually all of his peers by only doing it once in 60 years.
Think of any star who’s been as famous for as long as he has or has reached the same legendary status in Hollywood, and the chances are exceedingly high that they’ve notched at least a handful of biographical dramas, with Tom Hanks taking things so far he’s done it over a dozen times and counting.
Denzel Washington? He’s been nominated at the Academy Awards for playing Malcolm X and Rubin Carter, never mind his turns as Steve Biko, Frank Lucas, Herman Boone, Melvin B Tolson, and more. Will Smith? Won an Oscar for it. Meryl Streep? Won an Oscar for it. Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Gene Hackman, Samuel L Jackson, and any other veteran icon you think of? More than once.
Clearly, it’s never been of interest to Ford, although Extraordinary Measures‘ William Canfield was based on William Canfield. He’s built his career almost entirely on fictional characters, and you can’t say he hasn’t reaped the rewards. After all, he’s a legend, one of the biggest box office draws of all time, created two of pop culture’s most indelible figures in Han Solo and Indiana Jones, and has headlined countless great movies, all without feeling the need to take on a real person.
When he finally broke the habit of a lifetime, it came 46 years after his screen debut in 1966’s Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round in his 47th feature, and he hasn’t done it since. Ford broke his self-imposed rule to play Branch Rickey in the Jackie Robinson biopic, 42, and years before that happened, he explained why he was so against it.
“I shy away from playing real people because I don’t think I’m very good at imitation,” he told The Hollywood News. “I find another path to take on a character. I don’t want to take on the obligation people are familiar with. I’ve been asked to play Robert Kennedy and other well-known people that the public is familiar with, but I decided against it.”
He’s also knocked back the chance to play Jim Garrison in Oliver Stone’s JFK, Liam Neeson’s title role in Bill Condon’s Kinsey, and most famously, he regretted not accepting George Clooney’s Oscar-winning turn as Bob Barnes in Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana, which was heavily inspired by Robert Baer, whose memoir the film was based on. He has his reasons for avoiding it like the plague, but what convinced him to break the habit of a lifetime in 42?
It wasn’t like he eased himself in, either, with Ford donning a prosthetic paunch, wig, and fake eyebrows to get into character. “At this point, I’m not thinking I can play the leading man in many of the popular films we see today,” he accurately surmised for his first-ever foray into nonfictional acting, which was something he’d wanted to do for a long time.
“When I would occasionally suggest blurring the edges of the movie star personality, it was often rejected,” he said. “If I wanted to wear a moustache or a beard, they’d say, ‘No, no, no, we paid for the face. We want to see you.’” 42 director Brian Helgeland even told Ford’s agent that he wasn’t right for the part and turned down a meeting, only for the star to track him down, change his mind, and cross it off his list at long last.
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