As Woody Harrelson detailed Harrison Ford’s accomplishments from the Actors Awards stage, the famously gruff actor seemed to squirm in his seat, somehow uncomfortable with praise even at the age of 83. The environmentalist, pilot, and cultural icon (“he’s Han Solo,” Harrelson crowed) knew it was coming, though. Ford is the 61st recipient of SAG-AFTRA’s highest honor, its Life Achievement Award.
“I’m quite humbled,” Ford said as he took the stage. He acknowledged that most of the other actors at the event were being honored for their work, “while I’m here,” Ford said with a familiar grimace, “to receive a prize for being alive.”
“That said, it’s a little weird to get a lifetime achievement award at the half-point of my career,” he continued, to hoots and applause. “It’s a little early, isn’t it? I’m still a working actor.”
After acknowledging the struggles he faced as a young actor, including his famous origins as a carpenter, Ford said that he “finally got a part in a wildly successful film”—referring, of course, to the first Star Wars film. It was followed just four years later by Raiders of the Lost Ark. “Thank you, George Lucas,” said Ford. “Thank you, Steven Spielberg.”
Ford also brought up the camaraderie and fellowship he has found as an artist. “In my third year of college, I was a little lost” he said. “I felt isolated and alone, and then I found a company of people doing plays. People i once thought were misfits and geeks turned out to be my people.”
While fans of Ford’s work are used to see him express emotion, it’s rarer to see him open up without being in character. Perhaps he was aware of that as he spoke movingly about finding himself through acting, his eyes filling with tears. “I found a calling, a life in storytelling. an identity in pretending to be other people,” he said. “The work I do with other actors, it’s one of the great joys of my life.”
The man many know as Indiana Jones wasn’t the only one tearing up—every cut from Ford to the audience showed a welling-up a-lister. And how could they not be? Who in the room hasn’t grown up with Ford, either as the pilot of the Millennium Falcon, a Nazi-punching archeologist, or Dr. Richard “I didn’t kill my wife” Kimble?
As he wound things up, Ford remained somber, but retained his trademark wry wit. “I’m indeed a lucky guy. Lucky to have found my people, lucky to have worked with talented people, lucky to still be doing it, and I don’t take that for granted.”
“Thank you to SAG-AFTRA for honoring me with this prize,” he concluded. “This is very encouraging.”