Harrison Ford Quotes - Page 5

Starring in a science-fiction film doesn't mean you have to act science fiction.

I could take Sean Connery in a fight... I could definitely take him.

I enjoyed carpentry, and it was very good to me for 12 years.

The only ambition I ever had going into and committing to wanting to be an actor was to live my life.

Sometimes I try to improve the language, the lines, or the delivery, but I don't ad-lib because I think that makes it really hard for everybody else involved.

The job's always the same. It involves helping to tell the story and creating an alloy between character and story that serves the film.

I think American films right now are suffering from an excess of scale. Lots of movies we're seeing now are more akin to video games than stories about human life and relationships. Twelve- to 20-year-olds are maybe the largest economic force in the US movie business. I'm not a very nostalgic person - but I enjoy a good story.

I haven't purposefully set out to play heroes. I'm interested in playing the character who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances. But he's really either just saving himself or acting in the service of something that's important to him.

My character is meant to know nothing about rap, and not to like it very much, but I know about it, because my kids make me listen to it. There's some rap I do like very much. I like Eminem, Blackalicious.

It's a wonderful opportunity to be part of a child's growing up, which is always an endless springtime. You see the blossoming and the growing and the nurturing and the payoff.

The best movies are made from a point of view of an understanding of human nature and an understanding of history and an understanding of what motivates people, of what makes a good movie from an emotional place.

There is no barrier to Indiana Jones growing older. It's not an age-based character. We can't bang him up as much as we used to, maybe. But I guess I can pretend to have the capacity as well as I pretended before.

I was desperately unhappy with it [Blade Runner]. I was compelled by contract to record five or six different versions of the narration, each of which was found wanting on a storytelling basis. The final version was something that I was completely unhappy with. The movie obviously has a very strong following, but it could have been more than a cult picture.

A bad guy in a movie has a lot of latitude for acting. He can walk up the wall, crawl across the ceiling, go piss in the corner and everybody will say, "Fantastic!" But somebody's going to have to catch that sucker. Somebody's going to have to play the guy who gets him in the end. And that's a better part.

I just like the process of taking something written on a sheet of paper and giving it life and shape. I like the collaborative process of filmmaking, which is all simply to say that I love my work and I would continue to look for things that have the potential to be engaging and successful.

I've never been bothered by proximity to special effects and I've never felt disadvantaged by them. They're all part of a movie, and when the movie's under control I don't feel upstaged by them.

It's important not to base your ambition on anybody else's history, but to figure out how best to use your own particular personality and understanding of yourself to help tell other people's stories.

Parenting is an impossible job at any age.

I need a challenge. I need the intellectual stimulation. I'm a member of a community on each film, working in concert to try to bring an idea to life. It's a great job.

I don't think I have something that's pronounceable as a philosophy. ... When it was fashionable to say, "May the Force be with you," I always said, "Force yourself." ... I'll say again then, "The Force is within you. Force yourself."

You get a sense of reference there. You feel part of something that's got order and balance and harmony to it. All the distraction and noise, all the confusion of misplaced, misdirected energy just don't happen there.

I was never that much a focus of interest in my career. I'm aware of that now, which doesn't give me a lot of pleasure.

That [film What's My Line] was very useful to me because it had Branch Rickey in a social situation. Every other bit of film [42] that I had was him making a speech.

I rarely play a real person, because I don't think I'm a good imitator.

I don't do stunts - I do running, jumping and falling down. After 25 years I know exactly what I'm doing.