The “bullshit” movie Harrison Ford only made for the money: “This guy was a fraud”
In 1977, Star Wars became the highest-grossing motion picture of all time, and Harrison Ford was the face of fame across galaxies.
His performance as the rugged and charming blaster pistol-toting galactic renegade, Han Solo, made him an instant household name and defined an outlaw character archetype that has been repeated ad nauseam in the decades since.
For all intents and purposes, life was good for Ford, who had finally broken out after spending much of the ‘70s building a reputation with supporting turns in movies like American Graffiti and The Conversation. However, anyone with even a modicum of knowledge about his love-hate relationship with Star Wars will know he wasn’t exactly fond of the film, and would spend years doing everything he could to separate himself from Han Solo.
In fact, that process of putting distance between himself and Star Wars began with his very first movie after the release of George Lucas’ classic space opera. In ‘78, Harrison signed up to play Lieutenant Colonel Mike Barnsby in Force 10 from Navarone, the long-delayed sequel to The Guns of Navarone. That ‘61 World War II epic starred Gregory Peck as ex-spy and British Army captain Keith Mallory and David Niven as explosives expert Corporal John Anthony Miller.
However, because it took so long to put a sequel together, the decision was made to recast the ageing Peck and Niven, whose roles were now inhabited by Jaws star Robert Shaw and The Day of the Jackal’s Edward Fox. In the film, they team up with an American commando unit known as ‘Force 10’ to track and kill an elusive German spy who has embedded himself with the Communist-led Axis resistance in occupied Yugoslavia. Naturally, all manner of explosive, swashbuckling boys’ own adventure ensued, with Ford playing the leader of the titular unit.
Unfortunately, though, to say Force 10 from Navarone was less beloved than its predecessor would be a gargantuan understatement. Hell, two of its three principal stars hated the film with a passion, with Shaw, an acclaimed veteran of stage and screen, becoming so disillusioned with moviemaking during the shoot that he told the Chicago Tribune, “I’m seriously thinking that this might be my last film. I no longer have anything real to say. I’m appalled at some of the lines. I’m not at ease in film. I can’t remember the last film I enjoyed making.” Oof.
Ford, on the other hand, had his own reservations with the film from almost the second he arrived in Yugoslavia for the shoot. He had mainly accepted the role for the money and because the character was “very different from Han Solo”. To tell the truth, the actor was already terrified that Star Wars would typecast him as a sci-fi guy for the rest of his career, and he knew he was already on the hook to make sequels to Lucas’ megahit. Therefore, he wanted to show people he could be an action hero in a different vein, but it was a bad fit from the get-go.
“I was lost because I didn’t know what the story was about,” the disgruntled star admitted in Harrison Ford: Imperfect Hero, “I didn’t have anything to act”. He complained that many of his scenes were “bullshit” and that he had a “hard time” connecting to the motivation of his character. So, as he flailed wildly to find something to grab a hold of, he found himself imitating a generic war hero, instead of finding something “intensely personal” to build a character around. He lamented how it’s “much better to use your own personality and keep it sharp and oiled. Otherwise, you start churning out bullshit—and that lives on long after you’ve flushed yourself”.
Ultimately, Ford was no happier with Force 10 from Navarone than he was with Star Wars, and he wound up sitting in a cinema, staring up at himself onscreen with nothing but regret. “It’s still up there 40 feet high and 60 feet wide screaming, ‘Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!’” Ford groused, before revealing he knew audiences would think, “This guy was a fraud”. Oh, and did he mention it was bullshit?
