Harrison Ford became a breakout star after his role as Han Solo in Star Wars in 1977. Since then, he has built a large body of work as an actor and reached the heights of stardom. But it wasn’t always like that for the Indiana Jones star, as he detailed his struggles with depression in college and the lack of purpose he suffered from in a recent interview.
Ford felt he was “psychologically” not well in his college days until he joined drama class
At the Hollywood Reporter’s “Awards Chatter” podcast, Harrison Ford revealed that he was severely depressed in college. He stated that he would rarely come out of his room at Ripon College in Wisconsin. Dragging himself out of bed was an ordeal in itself, as he recounted that sometimes he would do so just to order pizza.
“I would get up out of my single bed, go to a phone, order a pizza, go back and lie down in bed until the pizza came,” Ford said, adding, “I would eat the pizza, throw the wrappers in the corner, go back to sleep.”
Going to classes was a “rare” instance for him, as he would often just “touch the door on the outside of the building and turn around and walk back.” He admitted that he was not just “depressed”; he was “socially” and “psychologically” ill.
He further went on to say that he didn’t find a community with whom he had a shared purpose until he joined a drama class to improve his low grades in college. This was the first time that Ford got a taste of what live performance felt like, apart from reading and analyzing plays.
Ford further realized in drama class that the people he considered “geeks and misfits” were actually quite interesting individuals. “They were doing something that I hadn’t really understood, and they were telling stories about life and life, and those stories about life were informative, and some of them were exceptional in their capacity to understand human behavior,” the Star Wars star noted.
“I think I simply found my place amongst storytellers,” he added.
Safe to say, drama class helped him find his true calling, and he went on to become one of the most renowned actors that the industry has ever produced.
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