Harrison Ford receives Life Achievement at Actor Awards
Last year, Harrison Ford stole the show at the SAG Awards by hilariously photobombing his “Shrinking” co-star Jessica Williams’ “I Am an Actor” monologue. But on Sunday night, at the newly renamed Actor Awards ceremony, the cinema icon had the spotlight all to himself as he accepted SAG-AFTRA’s Life Achievement Award.
It’s the latest award to honor Ford’s illustrious six-decade career, during which he played everyone from smuggler-turned-hero Han Solo in “Star Wars” to adventurous archeology professor Indiana Jones, and from CIA analyst Jack Ryan to former agent (and perhaps replica) Rick Deckard in the “Blade Runner” films, plus a few U.S. presidents.
“I’m here to honor one of the greatest actors of all time: Leo DiCaprio,” Woody Harrelson joked as he took the stage to present Ford with the award during the ceremony, which was streamed live on Netflix. “You have more talent in your little finger… than I have in my little finger. Of all the actors in the world, you are one of them. Everyone in the industry… knows you.”
(If you’re wondering how Harrelson got involved with this introduction, Harrelson joked that Ford asked him to give a presentation after his 1923 co-star Helen Mirren turned him down and former Vice President Kamala Harris was unavailable. In reality, Harrelson and Ford are friends.)
“Harrison is a true Renaissance man, an iconic actor, a prominent pilot and a master carpenter who built his own house. I don’t know how to operate the coffee machine, and it’s a French press,” Harrelson joked at the end of his lengthy monologue. “There’s an indescribable energy he brings to everything he does and every moment he’s on screen. And this is just a glimpse of that gritty, unforgettable magnetism.”
After a clip from Ford’s iconic career played, the actor kissed his wife, Calista Flockhart, and took the stage to give an emotional speech about what his acting career has meant to him.
“I’m incredibly grateful for this kind attention, but to be clear, I’m also quite humbled. I’m sitting in a room of actors, many of whom are here because they’ve been nominated to receive an award for their amazing work,” Ford began, then joked, “Well, I’m here to receive an award because I’m alive. It’s a little weird to get a Lifetime Achievement Award halfway through my career. It’s a little early, isn’t it? I’m still a working actor.”
Although Ford is now one of the most successful actors in history, he noted that he was not an overnight success. “I struggled for about 15 years, going from acting, then to carpentry, to acting again, until I finally got a role in a hugely successful movie. None of this happened on my own,” he said, growing increasingly verklempt as he credited “Star Wars” visionary George Lucas and “Indiana Jones” helmer Steven Spielberg, as well as the late casting director Fred Roos and Patricia McQueeney, his longtime manager. “They were both incredibly persistent and supported me at a time when I really needed it. Without them I wouldn’t be here.”
Ford started as an actor in his third year of college. “I was a bit lost. I was failing at school. I felt isolated, alone,” he recalls. “Then I found the company of people who put on plays – storytellers. People I once thought were misfits and nerds turned out to be my people.”
Through acting, Ford found his calling and identity by pretending to be other people. “The work I do with other actors is one of the greatest joys of my life,” he said. My career has been built on their work, but also on the work of writers, directors and every single cast member, every crew member I’ve ever been on set with.”
It is through these collaborations, Ford explained, that he finally came to know himself and navigate the highs and lows of the entertainment industry.
“As actors, we live many lives. We discover ideas that validate and elevate our shared experiences. The stories we tell have a unique ability to create moments of emotional connection. They bring us together,” said Ford. “So while we are all in this room at different stages of our lives and careers, we all share something fundamental: we share the privilege of working in the world of ideas, of empathy, of imagination. Sometimes we make entertainment. Sometimes we make art. Sometimes we get lucky, we make them both at the same time, and if we’re really lucky, we can make a living at it too.”
As the crowd of A-listers looked on in awe, Ford wrapped up his remarks with an eye to the future. “Success in this industry comes with a certain freedom, which comes with the responsibility to support each other,” he said. “To lift others up when we can; to hold the door open for the next child – the next lost boy looking for a place to belong. I am indeed a lucky person, lucky to have found my people, lucky to have a job that challenges me, lucky to still be doing it. I don’t take that for granted.”
Ford is the 61st recipient of the Life Achievement Award, joining a string of entertainment stars including Mary Tyler Moore, Sidney Poitier, Betty White, Jane Fonda, Robert De Niro, Elizabeth Taylor and James Earl Jones.
Ford previously won the Critics Choice Career Achievement Award (2024), an honorary Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival (2023), the Albert R. Broccoli Britannia Award (2015) from BAFTA, the Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Golden Globes (2002) and the AFI Life Achievement Award (2000).
Despite all the accolades, Ford is still celebrating some milestones; Last year, he was nominated for his first Emmy for his work on the Apple TV series ‘Shrinking’, in which he played Dr. Plays Paul Rhoades, the eccentric senior member of a Pasadena psychotherapy practice who has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
Days after learning the news, Ford sat down Variety for a candid, career-spanning cover story in which he reflected on everything from his first on-screen role — playing an errand boy in 1966’s “Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round” — to becoming one of the highest-grossing movie stars in history.
“I quickly realized that I loved telling stories. I enjoyed dressing up and pretending to be someone else,” Ford said of falling in love with acting in college. “I really felt unseen. Because I could hide behind the character, and that was the first freedom I really felt.”
When asked if he could ever see himself retiring from the profession, Ford responded with an emphatic “No.”
“One of the things I found attractive about an actor’s work was that they also need old people to play the parts of old people,” he said with his trademark dry humor.
