Harrison Ford Once Revealed He Owed His Career to a Lucky Bathroom Break

Actor Harrison Ford has made a career out of starring in major movies such as Indiana Jones and Star Wars.

But Ford has always felt a bit of luck has helped him to to where he is in the industry. After all, if it wasn’t for him taking a bathroom break, the beginning of his career might have looked different.

Why Harrison Ford got into acting

Acting wasn’t on Harrison Ford’s mind for much of his childhood and adolescence. This changed when The Fugitive star went to college. Although he majored in Philosophy and English at the time, he wasn’t doing too well academically. He would later join a drama class in an attempt to increase his GPA. But doing so only led to a passion for acting that later became a career.

“I chose acting primarily because it is a place where I found a sense of purpose and I had the ability and the agility for it, but it was a long time before I was successful at it,” Ford once said according to Success. “I had an ambition to do what I ended up doing, and persisted when others had said I couldn’t do it. There were a lot of people I worked with in that same time period who gave up. But I prevailed and tenacity was a big part of the reason. I didn’t give up. I didn’t quit.”

Harrison Ford once shared he owed his career to a bathroom break

Ford believed that there was a combination of qualities that led to an actor’s success and longevity in the industry. To him, simply a strong work ethic was one way of maintaining a career.

“There are a lot of different paths through the jungle, but I’ve always thought the simplest thing you can do is make yourself useful,” he said. “Be easy to work with, be a hard worker and help people get the job done. And do it with as much passion and quality as you can,” Ford said. “[Be] willing to ask, ‘How can I make this work, how can I be useful?'”

But the Air Force One actor didn’t downplay how much luck had a hand in helping him succeed in Hollywood. This was apparent in the very early stages in his career, when he was interviewed by a Columbia Studios casting director. Ford didn’t believe the interview went too well, so he left. But before leaving the studio altogether he made a quick stop for the restroom.

That was when luck struck for the actor. When he left the bathroom, the casting director’s assistant was running after Ford, telling him the director wanted him to come back.

“I don’t think that assistant would have run that much farther to get me. But he found me, and I left Columbia Pictures that day with a seven-year contract. I think, more than anything else, I’ve been lucky,
Ford said about the incident.

Why Harrison Ford once turned to carpentry

Ford didn’t last long over at Columbia. The actor was quickly kicked out for being too difficult. But this led to the American Graffiti star to a new profession that helped while he searched for acting work.

“So I decided to become a carpenter, as an alternative to taking roles I didn’t want to take. I was trying to make the transition from episodic television to features, because I’d been playing the same stock part time after time. I played the same guy on [’60s TV show] The FBI three times. I realised I was going to wear out my face doing episodic TV,” Ford once said in an interview with Empire.

Ford’s persistence would eventually pay off, and as many know he eventually became one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars.