I’ll be honest. When Indiana Jones 5 was first announced, the first thing I did was look up Harrison Ford’s age. It turns out he’s 77. The second thing I did was think, “Wow, he looks really good and moves around really well for 77.” And he does. From his recent turn in Call Of The Wild to his work on the newer Star Wars movies, Harrison Ford has always looked believable and capable. Not surprisingly, he works at it.
The legendary actor recently sat down with Parade Magazine to discuss a wide variety of things about his life including his love of flying, his marriage to Calista Flockhart and what he does for exercise. The answer to the last question is apparently a lot. Ford still does a lot of manual labor projects on his ranch in Wyoming himself, and beyond that, he bikes, plays tennis and lifts three days a week. He also apparently tries to stay as flexible as possible in order to fight off any injuries he gets, which have become more common. As with most things, Harrison Ford describes his own fitness in very understated terms…
“For my age, still pretty fit.”
Now, clearly Harrison Ford isn’t going to be doing the same level of stunts in Indiana Jones 5 as he did in the earlier movies. It’s important for movies to recognize the limitations of who they’re working with (a fact The Irishman recently forgot in a few scenes that may have cost people Oscars), but it’s also important for the actors to be able to move around with pace and aggression. I’m not saying you need to run a mile, but you need to believably move in a way that doesn’t cause the audience to think about your age.
Harrison Ford is still great at that. He moves around like he’s a rugged dude in his 50s. That might not play well enough for him to capably lead every scene in the way The Rock would, but it plays well enough to allow him to have some action scenes and play opposite someone else. I’m sure that’s what we’ll see in Indiana Jones 5.
Prior to his career taking off as an actor, Harrison Ford worked extensively as a carpenter. In fact, he reportedly was content to continue making that a career had Hollywood not worked out. In a way, it’s easy to still see some of those same qualities in Ford decades later. He’s a man of action, who is often very deliberate. Of course he still does maintenance projects on his ranch and prefers to handle things himself. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you the opposite.
I have no idea how many action movies Harrison Ford has left (or how long he'll be doing his own stunts for), but I hope he’s still playing tennis and fighting bad guys a decade from now.
