Ford shared his painstaking rise to fame in a commencement speech at Arizona State University earlier this week, and gave some advice to the graduates.

Harrison Ford recalls 15-year acting slump before Star Wars: ‘I was supporting my growing family with carpentry jobs’

Ford shared his painstaking rise to fame in a commencement speech at Arizona State University earlier this week, and gave some advice to the graduates.

By Kathleen Perricone

May 13, 2026 4:54 p.m. ET

Leave a Comment

Harrison Ford gives commencement speech at Arizona State University. Credit:

Arizona State University/YouTube

- Harrison Ford shared his 15-year rise to fame in Hollywood with the graduating class of Arizona State University on Monday.

- “I only took acting jobs when the part challenged me,” the Oscar nominee admitted, and worked as a carpenter to support his young family.

- Finally in 1977, “it all added up and I got *Star Wars*,” Ford told the audience.

Just as Indiana Jones said in *Raiders of the Lost Ark*, “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.”

Harrison Ford traced his painstaking 15-year rise to becoming one of Hollywood’s most celebrated actors in a commencement speech at Arizona State University, where he received an honorary Doctor of Arts and Humane Letters.

Harrison Ford in 1981's 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'.

Sixty-five years ago, when he was a student at Ripon College in Wisconsin, “I didn’t give much thought to my future,” he told the graduating class on Monday. “I did not make good choices.”

Looking for an easy A his junior year, Ford enrolled in a drama class, hoping he would “work at the box office or build sets” instead of performing on stage.

“My classmates were people I had previously discounted as geeks and misfits. But I soon realized I was a geek and a misfit,” he confessed, as the ASU crowd cheered. “I had found my fit. These were my people.”

Billie Lourd watches mom Carrie Fisher in 'Episode IV' with kids on Star Wars Day: 'Nothing brings me more joy'

'Shrinking' star Harrison Ford is 'grateful' for his Parkinson's storyline: 'It's changed the way people relate to me'

Ford earned major roles in several stage productions that year, saying that playing other people taught the young man how to find himself.

“I had always seen myself as shy, but hiding in character and costume and makeup, I had a freedom, a bravery I had never felt before,” recalled the Oscar nominee. “My passion had led me to community.”

Harrison Ford in 1966's 'Dead Heat on a Merry Go Round' with Camilla Sparv.

Screen Archives/Getty

In 1964, the head of Ripon's theater department invited the 22-year-old to Los Angeles to join him “at a more professional theater.” That led to a contract with Columbia Pictures, and thus the start of his Hollywood career.

“But acting was not yet paying the bills,” recalled Ford, who was a married father at the time. “I was supporting my growing family with carpentry jobs, another way to put food on the table. I only took acting jobs when the part challenged me.”

Harrison Ford in future 'Star Wars' director George Lucas' 1973 film 'American Graffiti'.

Screen Archives/Getty

“This went on for about 15 years,” he continued, “during which I did a lot of carpentry and only four or five acting jobs,” such as the 1973 coming-of-age film *American Graffiti* directed by George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola’s thriller *The Conversation* starring Gene Hackman in 1974.

Three years later, “it all added up and I got *Star Wars*.”

Harrison Ford as Han Solo in 1977's 'Star Wars'.

As his career took off the following decade with starring roles in the *Indiana Jones* franchise, *Blade Runner*, and *Witness*, “I had freedom, opportunity. But something was still missing,” Harrison confessed. Although he had plenty of “passion,” he lacked “purpose.”

That all changed in the late 1980s, he said, when he met a group of people in Wyoming who had formed Conservation International, a nonprofit that works to protect oceans, forests, and other living ecosystems.

Harrison Ford in his carpentry workshop in 1983.

Paul Harris/Getty

“They had their heads in the sky and their feet in the mud and they encouraged me to join them,” he told the ASU graduates. “There it was — purpose, a place to put my passion for storytelling to work.”

In 1991, Ford joined Conservation International as its vice-chair — a position he still holds.

“And that’s why I stand here now before you to represent for nature, the source of life itself,” he told the graduating class. “Because the world you’re stepping into, the world my generation left you, is a real mess.”

Harrison Ford and Jason Segel in 'Shrinking' on Apple TV+.

Beth Dubber/Apple TV+

Ford, who currently stars opposite Jason Segel on Apple TV's *Shrinking*, encouraged the young people in the audience to take their own individual talents and apply them to building a better future.

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our ******EW Dispatch newsletter******.***

“Your generation has far more power than you may realize,” he told them. “And if you harness that power, if you find your leadership, your issues, your voice, the world will not be able to ignore you. Believe me, I know that’s true.”

Watch Ford's full commencement speech at Arizona State University below.

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Movies”