THE LAST TIME I SPOKE WITH HIM WAS ON THE PHONE, THREE WEEKS AFTER WE DRANK BOURBON AT HIS house. We sat at the bar in what I'll call the family room, a gleaming wooden bar with the bottles lined up behind, organized in neat rows by type of liquor. We ate Emmentaler cheese that Harrison Ford had sliced in the kitchen with a silver cheese knife and arranged on a plate with a handful of wheat crackers. That was in Los Angeles, where he lives when he's not at his most-of-the-time home, the ranch in Wyoming that he bought in the eighties.
He was now in Atlanta. His voice, the unmistakable rich, low grumble, came through the phone obscured by some shuffling in the background.
"How you doing?" he asked.
In movies, Ford's voice can tremble and quiver at low volume, just enough to communicate a terrifying degree of urgency, like if you don't do what he says right now, people could die. It can jump to a sharp holler when things get even worse. His voice can be tender. It can be funny and biting.
On the phone, he just sounded like a guy on a Sunday afternoon. The background shuffling quieted.
"I'm learning a bunch of lines for tomorrow," he said, exhaling.
He was in Atlanta filming Captain America: New World Order, the fourth film in that franchise, in which he will play the president of the United States for the second time in his career.
I apologized for needing this additional time on the phone after he had been so generous in Los Angeles-breakfast, airplane hangar, driving around in his Tesla, the drinks at his home-but he said, "Don't be silly."
This story is from the Summer 2023 edition of Esquire US.
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This story is from the Summer 2023 edition of Esquire US.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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