“I thought I was being very nice to him”: the feud Harrison Ford didn’t even realise he was a part of
His reputation as one of cinema’s most beloved curmudgeons isn’t entirely undeserved and has even become a key part of his public persona, but Harrison Ford typically tends to reserve his misery for the promotional circuit.
It’s both entirely his own fault and a situation over which he has no control, with Han Solo the root of his problems. Playing one of the most iconic characters in cinema history in a franchise that millions of people have quite literally adopted as their religion of choice is going to leave a cultural impact, and Ford should realistically be used to fielding Star Wars queries almost 50 years down the line.
However, the roguish smuggler is also the source of much frustration, with Ford having less than zero interest in talking about Star Wars when he’s hitting the press trail for something that has nothing to do with a galaxy far, far away. His abject disdain is somewhere between endearing and blackly hilarious, but he’s never been a guy to feud with his co-stars.
He did bully Ron Howard for a little while on the set of Ron Howard’s American Graffiti, but that’s about it. Ford has always been celebrated by his colleagues and contemporaries as a stand-up guy, a committed professional, and a warm human being, apart from that one time he rubbed Josh Hartnett the wrong way.
The two played the main characters in 2003’s entirely forgettable Hollywood Homicide, which followed the standard buddy cop template of having a bright-eyed rookie paired up with a world-weary veteran to solve a case where their mutual distrust of each other eventually blossoms into respect.
It was a story that had been seen and done a thousand times before, except in this case, the animosity wasn’t too hard to fake for Hartnett. The rising star called Ford “the bane of my existence” and confessed there were plenty of awkward silences and disagreements between them. However, when he was asked, the Indiana Jones figurehead had no idea he was even feuding.
“Well, I certainly had fun,” he told the BBC. “I thought I was being very nice to him. I mean, if I had had any intention not to be nice to him, it would have been very different. I mean, I thought I was being nice to him. I think it came out very well. I think he’s the perfect balance to the character I play.”
Given his famously gruff demeanour, it’s probably very difficult for a younger actor to get a handle on whether or not Ford likes them, despises them, couldn’t care less about them, or is simply being himself. The icon maintained it was the latter, whereas Hartnett endured a thoroughly miserable time.
