Harrison Ford’s dry sarcasm ensures that his TV appearances are always memorable.
Though the legendary actor doesn’t always play ball with his interviewers (remember this teeth-grindingly awkward chat with the Radio Times from 2015?), when he does, the results can be TV gold.
As the star turns 78, we’re revisiting some of Ford’s best talk show moments from the Star Wars promo circuit and beyond.
Scroll through the gallery above for a look back at his life and career, too…
When he didn’t hide his disdain for Han Solo
“I argued for 30 years for this to happen and finally I wore them down” – Ford’s glee at finally getting Lucasfilm to kill off Han Solo in The Force Awakens was a recurring theme on the film’s press tour.
Of course, it turned out that Ford would in fact reprise the role one more time, in the new trilogy’s concluding part, The Rise of Skywalker – making Ford’s “lips are sealed” mime in response to Jimmy Kimmel’s questions in this clip rather prescient. Watch out for the open moments, where Ford makes another subtle dig about the on-set accident that left him injured while filming The Force Awakens.
When he hugged it out with Chewbacca
Another Star Wars: The Force Awakens press tour pit stop kicked off in dramatic fashion, with this Jimmy Kimmel show sketch featuring Ford yelling at his former sidekick Chewbacca through a megaphone as the Wookie teeters on the top of a building – before a soft focus, Adele-soundtracked montage of them drinking pints, playing Connect 4 and building a Lego Millennium Falcon helps remind him of the good times.
The pair then hug it out – much to the relief of the cheering studio audience.
When he recreated that perfect Star Wars moment
The “I love you” / “I know” exchange between Princess Leia and Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back is one of the most iconic Star Wars moments.
Ford made a couple of fans’ dreams come true (one of them had travelled all the way from Belguim just to see him) on The Graham Norton Show when the host managed to persuade him to respond in kind to their declarations of love – complete with John Williams’ soundtrack playing in the background.
When he recreated the Millennium Falcon accident… with a Star Wars action figure
OK, maybe Ford does hate the franchise that made him – just take a look at him demonstrating the ankle injury he sustained on the set of Star Wars: The Force Awakens on a Han Solo action doll on The Jimmy Fallon Show.
Plastic limbs – and tiny clothes – fly everywhere as Ford recreates the accident a little too enthusiastically, before eventually chucking his likeness off set. And when Fallon asks him if it felt “emotional” to put on his costume after 40 years? “No, I got paid.”
When Harrison met Alison
We’ve certainly saved the best till last. Allison Hammond’s unique brand of celebrity interviews are daytime TV gold, but her chaotic junket interview with Ford and his Blade Runner 2049 co-star Ryan Gosling is arguably one of her greatest on-screen hits (surely rivalled only by the time she fell into off the This Morning weather map and into the Albert Dock).
“Bleak, dystopian, an absolute nightmare to be honest with you – that’s just my interviewing techniques” – that’s how Hammond kicked things off, prompting Ford and Gosling to collapse into hysterics. Things only get more erratic from there, with Gosling and Hammond pouring out whiskey shots and Ford trying to keep things on track – before admitting defeat and snatching the glass from his castmate.
