Harrison Ford has had an incredible acting career and spent decades working steadily in the entertainment industry. But for him, acting has been more than just a job; it has been life-changing and helped him overcome his mental health struggles.
Harrison Ford Took a Class Called ‘Drama’
GettyIn an interview on The Hollywood Reporter’s podcast, “Awards Chatter” on Thursday, April 9, the actor discussed how he struggled with depression as a young adult. “I would get up out of my single bed, go to a phone, order a pizza, go back and lay down in bed until the pizza came. I would eat the pizza, throw the wrappers in the corner, go back to sleep,” he said of his experience while attending Ripon College in Wisconsin.
He continued, “I had a single room, and I had classes to go to, but I rarely ventured out. And on the rare occasion I did go to the classroom, I would often touch the door on the outside of the building, and turn around and walk back. I was more than depressed; I think I was ill. I was socially ill, psychologically not well.”
He was not doing well in college and needed to raise his GPA, so he decided to join a drama class. He recalled he “took a class called ‘drama’ without reading the full description of the class.” At the time, he had not expected to act, rather learn about plays, but he did act, and he was pleasantly surprised by the community in which he now found himself. “I was surprised that the people that I had considered to be fellow geeks and misfits were, in fact, some of the most interesting people I knew,” Ford said.
An Unlikely Community Changed Harrison Ford’s Life
GettyFord also described how the people in this drama community were doing something that would end up changing his life, and helping him through clinical depression. “They were doing something that I hadn’t really understood, and they were telling stories about life and life, and some of them were exceptional in their capacity to understand human behavior,” he recalled. “And so I think I simply found my place amongst storytellers. It really changed my world, changed my life.”
Ford’s most memorable roles include his portrayals of Han Solo in the “Star Wars” franchise, Deckard in “Blade Runner,” Indiana Jones in the “Indiana Jones” franchise, Jacob Dutton in “1923,” and John Book in “The Witness.” He is 83 now and has been acting for decades, with his first role listed as an uncredited bellhop in the 1966 film “Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round,” IMDB reports.
