Last year, Harrison Ford made headlines at the SAG Awards when he hilariously photobombed his Shrinking co-star Jessica Williams’ “I’m an Actor” monologue. But on Sunday night, at the newly renamed Actor’s Awards ceremony, the film icon stole the spotlight as he accepted SAG-AFTRA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
This is the latest award to honor Ford’s illustrious 60-year career, which has seen him play everything from smuggler-turned-hero Han Solo in Star Wars to adventurous archeology professor Indiana Jones, from CIA analyst Jack Ryan in Blade Runner to ex-cop (and possible replicant) Rick Deckard and even several U.S. presidents.
“I’m here to celebrate one of the greatest actors of all time, Leo DiCaprio,” Woody Harrelson joked as he took the stage to present the award to Ford during the ceremony, which was streamed live on Netflix. “You have more talent in your pinky finger than I have… in my pinky finger. Of all the actors in the world, you’re one of them. Everyone in the industry… knows about you.”
(For those wondering how Harrelson got involved in this introduction, he joked that Ford asked him to speak after his 1923 co-star Helen Mirren turned him down and former Vice President Kamala Harris was unable to attend. In fact, Harrelson and Ford are friends.)
“Harrison is a true Renaissance man, an iconic actor, a famous pilot, a master carpenter who built his own house. I don’t even know how to use a coffee machine, a French press,” Harrelson joked at the end of his long monologue. “There’s an indescribable energy that he brings to everything he does and every moment on screen. And this is just a glimpse of that gritty, haunting magnetism.”
After a clip reel of Ford’s iconic career played, the actor took to the stage and gave an emotional speech about what his acting career meant to him.
“I’m very grateful for this consideration, but frankly, I’m also very humbled. I’m here because I’m in a room of actors, many of whom have been nominated for awards for their amazing work,” Ford began. “Well, I came here to get the reward of being alive.”
Ford becomes the 61st recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award, joining a lineup of entertainment luminaries including Mary Tyler Moore, Sidney Poitier, Betty White, Jane Fonda, Robert De Niro, Elizabeth Taylor and James Earl Jones.
Ford has previously received the Critics’ Choice Career Achievement Award (2024), Cannes Film Festival’s Honorary Palme d’Or (2023), BAFTA’s Albert R. Broccoli Britannia Award (2015), Golden Globe Award’s Cecil B. DeMille Award (2002), and the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award (2000).
Despite all the accolades, Ford is still celebrating some milestones. For example, he received his first Emmy nomination last year for his work on the Apple TV series “Shrinking,” where he played Dr. Paul Rose, an eccentric senior member of a Pasadena psychotherapy clinic diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
Days after learning the news, Ford gave an interview to Variety magazine for a candid, career-spanning cover story, reflecting on his journey from his first on-screen role as a bellhop in 1966’s Dead Heat on a Carousel to becoming one of the highest-grossing movie stars of all time.
“I quickly realized that I loved telling stories. I loved dressing up and pretending to be someone else,” Ford said of falling in love with acting in college. “I really felt like no one was watching me. That was the first freedom I really felt, because I was able to hide behind the character.”
Even more in the future…
