The actor who called Harrison Ford “the bane of my existence”
Having been so famous for so long that he’s revered as one of the greatest movie stars of all time, Harrison Ford has embraced his veteran status to become one of the industry’s renowned grumps.
The actor’s disdain for being followed by the shadow of Star Wars everywhere he goes has become the stuff of legend, and he’s shown himself more than happy to offer his unvarnished, unfiltered, and often foul-mouthed opinions on anything that takes his fancy.
Unfortunately, Ford’s prickly demeanour didn’t sit too well with one of his former co-stars, who was only at the beginning of their career when they crossed paths. Before he actively dissuaded Hollywood’s attempts to turn him into a movie star by forsaking splashy roles in favour of smaller projects, Josh Hartnett had been pegged as the next big thing.
Part of that rapid would-be ascension saw him share the screen with Ford in Hollywood Homicide, Ron Shelton’s 2003 buddy comedy that partnered them up as a grizzled sergeant and fresh-faced detective tasked to unravel the mystery behind the murder of a music mogul.
The film was not good, and it failed to recoup its budget at the box office to add ‘bomb’ to its list of accomplishments, but the biggest talking point came from whispers that the two leads really did not get along. Ford reportedly referred to his younger scene partner as “a punk”, who responded in kind by branding the elder statesman as “an old fart”.
Although Hartnett did seek to clear the air almost two decades later when speaking to The Independent, he nonetheless confirmed that things weren’t entirely rosy behind the scenes. “Drama sold newspapers, especially back then. But we actually got along really well,” he explained. “There were things that we disagreed about on set as far as the script, and there was a lot of rewriting happening.”
Despite that, he claims talk of a full-blown feud was overblown. “But it was misinterpreted as ‘They don’t get along!’ It certainly wasn’t a set that was filled with tension,” Hartnett continued. “I think I did call him the bane of my existence when we were on the press tour for that movie, but that was just because he was constantly ribbing me. And that’s just his way.”
Ford’s curmudgeonly persona has always carried a mischievous air about it, and with Hartnett still relatively new to the business and working opposite somebody who’d been an A-lister for going on 30 years at that point, he may have failed to make a clear differentiation between the two. Everyone has somebody they’d refer to as the bane of their existence, and in this case, that person also happened to be one of the most famous movie stars on the planet.
