One Big Adventure

After years of trying to coax him onto a cliff face TOM BROKAW settles for a sea-level chat with HARRISON FORD about his iconic movie roles, jungle expeditions, helicopter mishaps, and other joys of the full-throttle life

Harrison Ford is a neatnik.

Before dinner at a bistro on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Ford orders a “wee bit” of single-malt Scotch served neat. The next morning, at his spacious New York home, a downtown penthouse loft, the minimalist style is, to my eye, perfectly aligned, neat. Nonetheless, Ford prowls the room, moving a chair slightly here, adjusting a picture frame just so there, and vigorously rinses out the coffee pot. Before settling in a library alcove for a long, wide-ranging conversation about some of our shared passions – travel, the environment, staying young – he moves my chair and a table a few inches, then, a few minutes later, moves them again.

This is a man who likes order.

Up to a point. He shares his life with actress Calista Flockhart, and he's willing to make an exception for her five-year-old son Liam, who has his train set scattered across the floor just beyond the kitchen. Ford attempts to introduce me, but obviously Liam prefers to stay with the trains, unmoved by the charms of one of history's most financially successful movie stars.

Harrison shrugs and we both chuckle, two friends who have achieved a certain station in life but still cannot command the attention of a preschooler. This small moment is another reminder to me of what's so appealing about Ford, 63, the man I've gotten to know over the years. He doesn't wrap himself in the layers of self-importance or the standard expectations of a star of his magnitude. Although we met back in the ‘70s, I first got to know him as a regular guy at a dinner with friends one night in the early ‘90s in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. There was far too much red wine, a saddle of lamb I helped cook over an open fire – almost setting the forest ablaze – and a raucous party that went deep into the night.

To be sure, Ford does enjoy the rich dividends of his stardom: the pricey ranch in Jackson, the bicoastal homes, airplanes, and helicopters. But you get the feeling that if it all collapsed tomorrow, as it frequently does for the star-crossed heroes he plays (his latest thriller, Firewall, opens later this month), he could just go back to his old craft of carpentry and cabinetmaking.

Of course, it's not going to collapse tomorrow. Ford would never let it. He's too focused on making it all work.

Tom Brokaw: Are you at a stage when you're thinking of the undone things in your life?

Harrison Ford: Yeah, I am putting pressure on myself to see more of the world, to deal with personal issues that are hanging fire.

TB: I have this little checklist that I'm not doing too well on. I never learned to play chess, and I want to learn. I don't tie my own flies as well as I should, so I want to improve that. Do you have a checklist?

HF: There are still some things I know I should do, like climb the Grand Teton. Even with my bad knees, I'm told I could do it. I used to be more of a list-maker, but within the last five or six years I sort of stopped. I don't know why. I guess I am focused more on what's right in front of me.

TB: When you were in your 40s, is this what you thought your 60s would look like?

HF: I don't have the habit of looking forward much; I never really thought when I was 40 about what it would be like when I was 60. I don't feel old. You look in the mirror and see the same old thing you've always trained yourself to see.

TB: I wake up some mornings to a jolt and think, "Oh my God, I'm 65."

HF: Yeah, sometimes I find myself getting into stunt pads and preparing to roll down a flight of stairs and wrestle some 26-year-old stuntman across the floor, and I think, "What the fuck am I doing?" But you know, it still feels good to do it, so I'll only stop when I... when it really hurts.

TB: Not going out for those early-bird specials?

HF: What are those?

TB: Senior discounts.

HF: No... but Calista and I went to the movies yesterday, and I ordered one adult and one senior citizen. The break was 62 years old at that theater.

TB: So you took advantage?

HF: Hell, yes. I saved $6.

TB: When you put on an earring and cut your hair, did people's reactions surprise you?

HF: I got the earring 10 years ago and people are still asking, "Is that new?" What happened was, I had gone to lunch with Jimmy Buffett and Ed Bradley. I think it was my birthday. I'm sitting there with them, and by the time it was over I thought, "Gee, I've always wanted an earring like Buffett and Bradley," so I went down the street and got a stud put in my ear. I went home and my son Malcolm said, "That thing in your ear, is that real?" I said, "Yeah, it's real." He said, "Whoa! Can I get one of those?" I said, "Sure, when you're 55 you can get one."

TB: Malcolm is 18 now. Liam is five. Do you think about what kind of world they'll be living in 20 years from now?

HF: Absolutely. What troubles me more is that the people who will suffer the most aren't our sons. It's the people in the Third World.

TB: Your interest in the environment comes to mind here. Where does that passion come from? Here you were, raised in the Chicago suburbs.

HF: My dad was in advertising, and one of his accounts was Zoo Parade [a local television show]. In those days they did live commer­cials, so on Saturdays I went to Zoo Parade and because of my dad's connections, I had access backstage at the Lincoln Park Zoo and met the animals. I became interested in animals; our family would take farm vacations in Michigan and Wisconsin, and I would help milk the cows, feed the chickens, slop the pigs. Then later I went away to Boy Scout camp and became the assistant nature counselor. Camp Napawan in Wisconsin.

TB: Were you a good Boy Scout?

HF: I was a fair Boy Scout. I never made Eagle. I was a Star [the third-highest rank in Scouting].

TB: And then the girls checked in.

HF: There was no merit badge for chicks.

TB: Exactly.

HF: But there should be.

TB: Now, so much of your attention is focused on C.I. – Conservation International. C.I. is a different order of environmental organization, because it is scientifically based. It's not a political-activist organization. Why did you choose C.I. [Author's note: My wife Meredith serves on the C.I. board with Ford.]

HF: I wanted to work with some kind of organization and do a little payback. With the quality of the people that were involved with the C.I. board I thought, "Wow, what a great opportunity to sit around and listen to all these really smart people."

TB: E.O. Wilson [the renowned Harvard biologist], Gordon Moore [the cofounder of Intel].

HF: Powerful intellects, and they've devoted a good portion of their time and resources to the issues that confront the environment. Still, even with C.I. – and it's had remarkable successes in key areas that are now safe from encroachment – there is so much more that needs to be done. C.I. had the unusual idea that we should be working on some of the major problems by working with the organizations that created those problems – corporations, governments. That was a bold move within the conservation community, like working with the enemy. But now, many of the enemy have come over to our side. They've done remarkable things to change the way business is done.

TB: Are you tempted to take a higher profile?

HF: No. I've said from the beginning I want to help, but I don't want to be a poster boy for C.I. I have traveled with them to Guatemala, Venezuela, and Brazil, where C.I. works with the governments and companies to protect biodiversity and preserve the rain forests. We work in 40 different countries.

TB: Do you think some people in your business get too far out in front for their causes?

HF: It is easy for the public to become inured to the beseechings of celebrities. I also think the arguments should be made by experts. I do not consider myself an expert.

WHENEVER HARRISON and I get together I tease him about joining Yvon Chouinard (founder of Patagonia, Inc.) and me on a climbing or backcountry trip of some kind. Unfortunately, the first time we discussed it, years ago, I regaled Harrison with stories of how I had been sandbagged by Chouinard on some of our outings – introducing me to kayaking in Class III white­water and forgetting the life jackets, persuading me to free-climb a big rock face, and sending me across a steep pitch of black ice on Mount Rainier after a very short lesson on the use of crampons.

Harrison took it all in, smiled, and emphatically said, "No" – a response he repeats every time I bring up the invitation. Flying is another matter for Ford, however. His legendary reserve quickly fades when someone approaches to talk about planes and helicopters. He's an expert pilot qualified in jets and choppers – to the extent that he once famously rescued a teenage hiker in the Wyoming backcountry.

TB: You live in New York, L.A., and Jackson Hole. In our family we say our hearts skip a beat when we arrive in Montana, and when we come back across the Triborough Bridge into Manhattan they skip a beat again.

HF: Yeah, it's the same with me – I require what one gets from each. Urban and rural. But I can't stay too long in either. You're a sportsman. You spend a lot of time hunting, fishing, climbing.

TB: So, when are you finally going to let Chouinard and me drag you out?

HF: C’mon, you guys are too goddamn scary. I don't want to be on a mountain and have you guys turn to me and say, "What are you doing, Ford?"

TB: Do people sometimes mistake your Indiana Jones role with how you live the rest of your life? They think you're out there with your leather jacket?

HF: I hope not. There's considerable evidence that there is less to this man than meets the eye.

TB: What's your idea of roughing it?

HF: Roughing it [laughing]. Well, driving five hours on a rough road in Venezuela when I know I could do it in an hour in a helicopter.

TB: Speaking of flying, you seem to take it very seriously as a form of escape. What happens when you crawl into the cockpit of an airplane?

HF: I obtain focus and a sense of purpose and mission, and I am very, very happy. I know what I have to do. I've spent enough time in training to know how to do it, and every time I step into an airplane is an exciting time for me.

TB: Is the appeal also that you can shut out other parts of your life?

HF: That's what I mean by focus. I can spend five or six hours and really just focus on the airplane, where we're going; what we're gonna do, and how we're gonna do it.

TB: One of our mutual friends calls airplanes "hydrocarbon hell."

HF: It's true.

TB: They're flying around, burning through jet fuel at big rates. Do you ever think of that? Is that a trade-off you're prepared to make?

HF: [Smiling.] I have very efficient engines that do the least damage.

TB: Well, this was [best-selling novelist and outdoors writer] Tom McGuane needling his brother-in-law Jimmy Buffett, and I think his point was driven more by envy of the convenience of a private plane than anything else.

HF: Yeah, well, it's an issue. Maybe I'm going to have to buy some carbon offsets. [Smiling again. Carbon offsets are, in effect, pollution privileges that industrialized nations purchase from less developed countries as part of the Kyoto Protocol.]

TB: I find it interesting to watch you get into a zone when you’re talking to someone else who is interested in flying. Do you remember being at a book party at Rockefeller Plaza, meeting John Kennedy Jr.?

HF: Yeah. He was just starting and wondering what kind of airplane to buy. We talked about it then and a couple of other times. It was a terrible thing that happened.

TB: Right away, a lot of pilots thought they knew how it had happened.

HF: I did. I'd been there, in that same environment, flying the shoreline of Long Island, and when you turn to go towards Martha's Vineyard you lose all of your up-and-down contact, so you're headed out into a black hole. That's when instruments are really required, even in clear skies.

TB: Have you had some close calls yourself?

HF: I've had a couple of incidents. Fairly early on, I crashed one helicopter. We were practicing auto rotations – myself and a friend who's a helicopter CFI [certified flight instructor].

TB: I always thought of auto rotations as a kind of controlled crash.

HF: We in the helicopter business don't like to use that phrase. We had done one auto rotation and were coming around to do another. You go up to a certain altitude and roll off the throttle to cut the power. We were going up to 75 feet and came out of it. But in this case the throttle didn't come back. Now we're in a real auto rotation. Big torque turn. Some skids in the sand. [Ford and his friend were fine. The heli­copter was wrecked.]

TB: Have you been in the back seat of any high-performing military jets?

HF: Yeah, I've been lucky. I've ridden in an F-16 with the Thunderbirds, and I've gotten to fly the tilt rotor in a Cobra.

TB: I'm not sure how I persuaded the navy to let me do this, but I flew in the back of an F-14 off the U.S.S. Stennis for three hours over Afghanistan.

HF: That's nuts.

TB: And came back, refueled, did a photo recon over Kandahar, then came back again and did a couple of aerobatics over the ship so everybody could see it. Then later, I went up with the admiral of the fleet as they were grading nighttime landings. We were standing just off the deck out in the pitching sea. These guys had been on a mission, out three or four hours. Now they come in, it's night, and they have this little patch they have to hit. I was totally in awe.

HF: Now that's a set of skills beyond comprehension. That's real. And those are just kids. They say it's the lack of understanding of the imminence of death, but it also takes the reaction times of a kid.

TB: They say video games are making better pilots.

HF: It's true. When I went into the flight simulator to get one rating or another, I couldn't figure it out. I said to myself, “This doesn’t fly like an airplane. This is a video game. I don’t know who to play.”

TB: How do Calista and Liam like flying with you?

HF: Calista was a nervous flier at first. She'd never been in a small plane before. But she quickly grew to love it. Liam has loved it from the beginning. His first word was "airpane." Now he comes up into to the cockpit to ask, "How long till we get there?"

FORD'S PASSION FOR PRECISION, whether in the way his furniture is arranged or the way he pilots a jet on a cross-country trip, also applies to the way he's managed his career. He famously worked as a cabinetmaker and skilled carpenter in Southern California until he was satisfied he could make a living in acting and enjoy the roles that were offered to him. He bonded with director George Lucas when the young Hollywood outsider cast Ford as the hunk in American Graffiti. Their next project together, of course, was a rocket to film immortality – and established Ford as a fun-loving maverick icon.

TB: Remember when the first Star Wars opened, you came to New York and sat in the Today show green room for two days as we taped interviews? No undue handlers, no undue demands on how the interviews of the cast and George would be conducted.

HF: Yeah, I won't be doing that again.

TB: You and Lucas just hung out, and we talked.

HF: It was a pretty remarkable time. The order of successes that Star Wars had was just stunning. It was certainly stunning for me, someone who had been in the business for 15 years, just struggling along, and suddenly I had these opportunities I'd never imagined. It changed my life.

TB: It took America's art form to a whole different level, frankly. There had never been anything like Star Wars. And it introduced a whole new generation of stars and filmmakers. Do you remember one evening here in New York, Conservation International was doing an event at the American Museum of Natural History with Will Ferrell? Part of the reason he wanted to do the event was because he wanted to meet you. He was in grade school when Star Wars came out. There was this whole Han Solo generation who grew up on Star Wars and for whom its evolution was a major part of their lives. You ever stop to think about that?

HF: No, I don't. I feel like I don't understand it because I'm probably too close to it. I don't think I can look at it objectively.

TB: Of the actors we grew up with – Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, Marlon Brando, Clark Gable…

HF: Gregory Peck...

TB: Cary Grant... Have you ever thought that for young people growing up now watching Harrison Ford, they're going to think of you in the same way you thought of those guys?

HF: Well, I just thought they were pros. And if peo­ple think of me as a pro, as being good, or happily good at least most of the time, then that will be enough, that will be gratifying.

TB: You want to work forever?

HF: Probably. Yeah. And I've always thought one of the virtues of this business is that you can grow old in it. You can still be an old man and tell a story.

TB: I understand you and Steven Spielberg will start work on another Indiana Jones sequel soon. And I'm told Indiana is going to have a little more gray and be a bit more weathered.

HF: For sure. It ought to be interesting. [Smiles.] It ought to net us some good fun.

- By Tom Brokaw

(Photos - High school Ford: Classmates.com Yearbook Archive; Conservation International trip: Gustavo Fonseca)

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From the Contributors page:

Straight Talk
“I first met Harrison Ford on the Today show in 1977 when Star Wars came out,” says Tom Brokaw, who reconnected with Ford in New York in November for a candid interview. “He had done some carpentry work for a mutual friend [writer Joan Didion]. When I saw the film I thought, ‘Here’s a big star in the making.’” The two legends, whose iconic lives have continually intersected over the years through their work and love for the outdoors, talked about how to live the biggest life possible. The two guiding principles: a sense of humor and authenticity. “ Harrison can easily mock himself, but he’s totally in control of his life – he knows what he wants,” says Brokaw. “His homes are exquisitely designed because he’s a great carpenter, and he’s passionate about flying planes across the country. But he does it for himself, not the public. There’s something very admirable about that.”

Adventure Buddies
For nearly two decades, celebrity photographer Timothy White has shot Hollywood’s biggest stars. But he’s snapped actor Harrison Ford the most, and over the years the two have become close friends. “We share a passion for motorbikes, cars, and planes,” says the New York-based White, who captured Ford for this month’s cover. White collects cars and motorcycles and frequently pulls off adventures between shoots: He served as Ford’s wingman on a cross-country helicopter trip and rode motorcycles with Brad Pitt through the California desert. White’s book of photographs on the legendary motorcyclist Indian Larry will be out next month from Merrell.