Since Star Wars burst into the consciousness of a receptive world in 1977, millions of words have been written about the phenomenon and the sub-culture it has spawned. Writer-director George Lucas, whose vision it was, became a household name. John Dykstra and the special-effects crew which gave the movie its magic found themselves unexpectedly in the spotlight. ComposerJohn Williams waxed loquacious as he grew rich; stars Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Alec Guiness and even Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) were interviewed, re-interviewed and questioned dry. Sociologists pondered the worldwide willingness to accept this unlikely story, while Star Wars towels, sheets, soap, games, toys, books and countless other ancillae were marketed into every corner of Earth.

But in one corner of the galaxy there was and still is a perplexing irony to the whole thing: More people understand Han Solo, the taciturn, mersenary pilot of The Millennium Falcon, than know or understand Harrison Ford, the actor who gave him life.

Partly because interviewers never looked in his direction, and partly becuse he never felt comfortable with the press anyway, Harrison Ford is an unknown quantity. But with The Empire Strikes Back now in release and Han Solo widely recognized as the dominant character, and with a contract signed for the third film, The Revenge of the Jedi, to start production in the fall of 1981, Ford decided to grant STARLOG an interview, revealing a man of surprising depths, quite unlike the public perception of him.

"It doesn't spoil anything for people to know I'm coming back," said Ford in his suite at New York's Plaza Hotel. "They know I'm gonna get out of that carbon stuff. But it's how I do it, not if - but when.

"In the beginning I didn't sign a contract with an option for a second film because I had been tied up in studio contracts before and I wasn't going to make that mistake again. "

This led to rumors that Ford was difficult, not only to negotiate with, but to work with. To this suggestion Ford has a quick response: "If there are rumors and you come to the source for a denial, it is very likely that he will not be believed. Ask some of the directors or other people I've worked with. I consider myself anything but difficult.

"Also, I'm not afraid of being stereotyped in the Han Solo character. I frankly don't think it could happen. The character is broad enough to make typing difficult. People expect me to be the character. Maybe that 's why they have these impressions of me? I don't know. " But when Ford relates some of his early experiences in the movie business, his reluctance to sign term contracts seems well founded.

"When I came to L.A. from Chicago in 1963, I signed a seven-year contract at Columbia," Ford says. "My first role was as a bell boy in Dead Heat on a Merry-go-round with James Coburn. I thought when you played a bell boy you were supposed to act like one. I was wrong.

"One day the guy in charge of new talent called me into his office and told me a story about an actor who delivered groceries in a film. He said, 'You took one look at that guy and you knew there was a star. you ain't got that. kid . ' I knew that studio contracts weren't for me at that moment, and I wound up not working for another six months. "After a year and a half of bit parts I finally got out of the contract but I fell into another one just like it at Universal and this same situation existed. "

After his release from that bondage, Ford, discouraged with acting, turned to carpentry, something he knew quite a bit about and loved doing. "As my first job I built a million-dollar recording studio in Sergio Mendez' yard. He didn't ask me if it was my first job and I never told him.

"Right about then George started open; casting calls for Star Wars, but he said he wasn't seeing anyone from Graftti, and I understood, because I think it's every filmmaker's right to approach a new project with new people. A couple of weeks before they had to make final casting decisions, with hundreds of candidates already seen and tested, I was asked to go in and do a videotape with the material.

"I read a couple of lines and a few days later I tested with some of the other people. I took a week off from carpentering so l could give it my full attention, and in a little while they told me I had the part. Would you believe I finished my current carpentry job the day before I left for London?"

Post facto, Ford gives no suggestion that he recognized a blockbuster in the script. "I had no interest in science fiction - unlike Mark Hamill. To me it was just another job," Ford says. "But when I read the script, I saw the relationships between characters and the human story, and I saw where there might be a real good place for me. I was happy about the project, but I had no idea what I was going to see when it was all together.

"I had no idea if it was even possible to do a film like that, and I didn't have enough of a background to know that there were a lot of people out there interested in this kind of material. "

During the making of Star Wars neither cast nor crew had the slightest inkling that what they were doing would turn into a phenomenon, and Ford admits he never suspected Han Solo would emerge as a pivotal character.

"What you have in Star Wars is a lot of characters to identify with. Some take to one, others favor somebody else, so it is very important that each character be given ample time and equal opportunity to satisfy their part of the audience.

"I am pleased with my character because he is most like the majority of the audience. He has the most contemporary attitudes - but without the naivete of Luke, I would not be able to portray sophistication.

"It's really an ensemble effort. The actors like actors in other films, are not the characters they portray. They are assistant storytellers. They are workers in an enterprise that requires total cooperation. If any shines more than another, the project falls apart. "I am consistently asked how it feels to be upstaged by special effects, to which my answer is: That implies the film is out of control. It implies that the filmmaker made a mistake. "

Thinking about what he just said, Ford agrees that some of his actions after Star Wars 2 hit might have caused a public perception that he was, or is, difficult.

"After the picture became successful I was offered a spate of science-fiction roles and naturally I turned them all down. It's true that if you do one kind of character, you automatically get offered the same kind of role. That is why I worked so hard to break that mold.

" I did Heroes because I wanted a contrast. I ended up doing Force 10 from Navarone because it was the only non-Han Solo role offered to me."

By then Lucas and 20th Century-Fox had announced that the second part of the middle trilogy in this nine-part intergalactic saga would be made, and that all the principals but Ford had been signed. The thought that he might not be aboard the Millennium Falcon touched off panic in Star Wars fan circles.

" I had not discussed doing the second one before the first one was completed and in release for a while, but when we came together, I had no difficulty deciding I would do part two. In fact, I was happy to do it again because I thought I could do it better, having already done the role once."

The character of Han Solo is greatly expanded in The Empire Strikes Back, and again, Ford's comments are precise and incisive.

"It's part of the natural progression, realIy. You'd expect development of the characters in a second act. I was expecting it and wasn't surprised when I saw a different version of Han Solo in the script. We get to know him better.

"I'll give you an example of how that development worked: Take the scene where I am about to go down the chute to be carbonized and the princess says, 'I love you.' I reply, 'I know.' Well, the original line was, 'I love you, too,' but I felt that the other way - despite being able to be interpreted 1,000 different ways - was Han Solo, his way of saying it's not over."

" I was very interested in that moment and how it works. We never even shot 'I love you, too,' we just went ahead. It gave George pause. He had not written the scene with a laugh. But that laugh opens you up emotionally. You don't have another emotional outlet in that scene. The kiss, as the Princess and I are pulled back, is visually strong, and there'll never be a payoff for the scene without a laugh."

Ford also says that he had a finished script in advance of the start of shooting and that no major changes occured.

"But you always have changes when you come to play a scene. We all know about other films where that gets out of hand, but not in this case, though a lot of lines were the result of invention at the time. When you know your characters as well as we do, some of the best lines come out:"

Ford recalls a similar incident in Star Wars.

"Remember when Mark and I break into the cell block to free the Princess? That scene was written for me to speak into the communicator (before blasting it), but when it came to producing confusion - I mean the first time anyone would ever see Han Solo confused, the man who always knew exactly what he was doing. . . Well, you put him out in front of the thing and - nothing! That was the joke of that. I never bothered to learn the exact lines so that I could really be confused.

That 's technique," Ford adds with a chuckle.

Many of those lucky enough to have already seen The Empire Strikes Back feel that it is not better than, or in any way less than, Star Wars, and this tends to surprise even the sharpest-eyed critics because the films were directed by vastly different men. "I wouldn't try comparing Lucas to Kershner, " Ford says. "What is interesting to me is that two such different men were able to make two films that meld perfectly. It doesn 't matter that they come from different backgrounds and are far apart in age, because both films are in service of an idea.

"There is a very strong idea and that's what keeps you on the track . That 's the key to it all . George wasn't on hand for much of the second film. But the idea was, and it's Kershner's discipline, talent and technique that service the idea. He doesn't go and do a star turn or anything.

"It is a job he attacked with great courage. It's an awesome responsibility, a difficult job, and a job in which you're bound to catch a lot of flack sooner or later. But that never happened. I don't think I ever walked away from a scene thinking that I hadn't given it my best shot; or that the whole team hadn't given their best."

The opening sequences in the film were the first to be shot, in temperatures 36 degrees below zero in Finske, Norway, and Ford almost didn't make it for his first camera call when the train he was riding became trapped by an avalanche. But he did show up, quite a bit worse for the wear.

"It was so cold that no equipment could be operated outside for more than three or four minutes. It all froze up," Ford explains. "You couldn't tell if a sync-generator was working. I kept asking myself how I got into the whole mess. But I couldn't have left even if I'd wanted to - there was no way out. The trains were buried in snow. "

Surprisingly, but not really so after you get to know Harrison Ford, he never bothered to read the script pages for the scenes in which he did not appear.

"I asked Irvin if I had to read this section or that. He said there was no need to. So, when I finally saw the finished movie, I learned for the first time all the things that happened to Luke. It was great."

Ford candidly admits that he likes the element of surprise, and the finished film is constantly surprising to him, especially because so many of his reactions are to special effects that weren't done for months or even a year after his scenes.

"What Star Wars has accomplished is really not possible," he says. "But it has done it anyway. Nobody rational would have believed that there is still a place for fairy tales. There is no place in our culture for this kind of stuff. But the need is there; the human need to have the human condition expressed in mythic terms."

For Lucas to have the guts to do it so barefacedly instead of piling on a lot of mock sophisticiation to make it look as though he is a sophisticated guy, is a testimonial in itself. "Look at the way the first film emerged in 1977. That audience has had three years of maturation and change. But now we have the uncanny assessment of that maturation factor, the distillation of our common experience that makes the second, film work.

" The Empire Strikes Back is for the audience of Star Wars plus whoever else out there decides to jump on it, but George doesn't go back and try to adjust the time frame and make a different kind of movie. He just goes on, secure in knowing the people are aboard. It's incredible."

But after seeing the film and being exposed to the select audience who saw the early screenings, Ford does get a bit edgy.

"A lot of times I heard that people were disappointed with the ending. But they contradict themselves every time. 'I can't wait for the third one,' is always their next comment."

But the big question about The Revenge of the Jedi has been answered. Harrison Ford will be in it, and he, too, is looking forward to it, though he has no inkling from Lucas about the storyline.

Most of the 38-year-old actor's work has taken him away from Los Angeles and that is a point of anguish for him.

"I have a couple of kids there, and being on the road is very disquieting, " Ford admits . "I like to be in my own space with them. Sometimes I bring them over with me for a couple of weeks. They were in London and they visited Yugoslavia, just so I could see them . "

Do the boys regard his being Han Solo with the awe of a Star Wars fan?

"No," Ford says. "They've known me as an actor for a long time, but they are inordinately pleased that I have done something that is specifically recognizable."

Since making the trek westward from Chicago 17 years ago, Ford has had his lean years, and with the financial security that Han Solo has given him, it is conceivable that his attitudes have changed.

"The world of acting is a great place to work. There are so many challenges and opportunities. I'm in it for the work. I love figuring out how best to make a point or express an idea. That for me is the whole bag. When people let your participate in the process as George and Irvin do, it is as much enjoyment as I could want.

"For me that's bliss - when you're so engaged that you're used up. I have no ambition to go behind the cameras, " he continues. "In fact, I have no ambition, period! I arn finished with ambition and the obstacles that ambition causes. I am now interested in refining and polishing what I have. If I get bored with that, I'll look for something else. But I'm not at all sure it would be directing. It might be running a retail store or, better yet, carpentry. "

For the moment, Harrison Ford has Han Solo together, and between them they must nurture a legend. When that is behind him Ford will certainly not be at a loss for words and will have left a permanent record of hit contributions to the world of SF film.

By David Packer
Starlog Magazine
Auugust 1980