- Dustin Hoffman, The Graduate, 1967. Ford was recommended to top stage-screen director Mike Nichols by Walter Beakel, head of Columbia's New Talent Programme, who had taught Nichols at Second City in Chicago, Both actors were too old for Ben Braddock, although Harrison's 25 was better than Dusty's 30.
- Gary Lockwood, The Model Shop, 1969.
“Jacques Demy was the first to believe in me, ” said Ford, who remained friends with the French realisateur(and his film-maker wife, Agnes Varda). Demy insisted on casting Ford and scouted locations with him, but Columbia did not agree. But of course! Harrison told me that in 1966 one executive had already written off the young contractee getting $115 a week… "Kid - they always called me Kid, probably because they didn’t know who the hell I was.
“Kid, siddown. Lemme tell you a story.... First time Tony Curtis ever appeared in a movie, he delivered a bag of groceries. A bag of groceries! You took one look and you knew that was a star! You ain’t got, it, kid!” Despite 2001, Lockwood never had it.
- Jon Voight, Midnight Cowboy, 1969. British director John Schlesinger was seeing any young actors who had played cowpokes - Ford, Michael Sarrazin, Don Stroud from Journey To Shiloh, 1968. Sarrazin won and was Joe Buck until scenarist Waldo Salt's actress daughter, Jennifer, told everyone to watch her boyfriend in a TV play.
- Mark Frechette, Zabriskie Point, 1970. As always, casting man Fred Roos was in Harrison's corner and thought him born for the role, on-the-money perfect for the Italian maestro Michelangelo Antonioni's hero - disillusioned with life's mindless materialism. Ford's strongest qualities? "His great sense of masculinity... dangerous intensity... combined with this droll sense of humour... and an air of confidence. I was so bitterly disappointed when I couldn't convince Michelangelo." So was Ford, but Fred found him a walk-on scene to earn some much needed money. And never gave up on him.
- Rob Reiner, All In The Family, TV, 1971-79. Harrison refused to play Mike Stivic because of his bigot father-in-law, Archie Bunker. The original son-in-law in the BBC series (Till Death Do Us Part, 1965-75) was Anthony Booth, future father-in-law of 1997-2007 British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
- Frederic Forrest, The Conversation, 1974. Fred Roos was still pushing, but director Francis Coppola preferred one of his rep company - giving Ford the small role of... Young Man. Having seen a garish green suit on sale for $900, Ford immediately turned him into Young Gay Man and his passion for his notion soon had Coppola agreeing to buy the suit for the film.
- Lee Majors, The Six Million Dollar Man, TV, 1977. Bored with Steve Austin, even changing identity with a moustache, Majors was playing hard to get in the spring of ’77 and the producers looked at possible replacements. Ford, they said, was not suitable for an action hero...!
- Alan Arkin, The Last Unicorn, 1982. Also considered as the voice of magician, Schmendrick, was his Star Wars cohort Mark Hamill, who later made a career of voicing numerous TV and video-game characters.
- Michael Ontkean, Making Love, 1982. Wary of the subject matter: a husband having his gay side awakened by Harry Hamlin,
- Jack Nicholson, Terms of Endearment, l983. And Jack collected his second Oscar.
- Al Pacino, Revolution, 1986. "I want to be surprised when I open a script." Producer Irwin Winkler said it had great potential: "I'd like to do it again." Masochist!
- Kevin Costner, The Untouchables, 1987. Casting is never copycat director Brian De Palma's strongest suit. He was playing safe, talking to Ford or Mel Gibson, when pals George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were telling him: Costner, Costner, Costner!
- Kevin Kline, Cry Freedom, 1987. Turned down - quite rightly! - the white journalist who Brit director Richard Attenborough made the hero of the black Steve Biko story!
- Mel Gibson, Tequila Sunrise, 1988. Not interested in playing a dealer - repenti, or not. Not that he was anti-marijuana.
- Tom Hanks, Big, 1988. Both Ford and Robert De Niro rejected it - as a comedy. They both later made (more dramatic) stories calling for them to be child-like in adult bodies: Harrison’s Regarding Henry and De Niro’s Awakenings
- Bob Hoskins, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? 1988. The book asked Who Killed... and Disney planned Who Shot... Not even Steven Spielberg could persuade his pal to become the noirish shamus - changed from "seedily attractive" to "knockabout with an edge of pathos"for Hoskins.
- Tim Robbins, Erik The Viking, 1988. There was a flurry of names run up various flagpoles for Erik, from Nicolas Cage and Tom Hulce to... wait for it... Michel Plain and Harrison Ford!!!
- Dwight Schulz, The Shadow Makers (aka Fat Man and Lttle Boy), 1989. "Harrison told me the reason he didn't do it," says Bonnie Bedelia, "was because after reading the script three times, he realised I had the best role. I was a scientist but you wouldn't know it - 95% of what I played was cut out."
- Don Johnson, The Hot Spot, 1990. Robert Mitchum was the matrix of the drifter - and first choice in 1962. Ford, Kevin Costner, Richard Gere, Dennis Quaid, Mickey Rourke, Tom Selleck, Sam Shepard and Patrick Swayze were in the later mix - opposite Anne Archer, Melanie Griffith, Theresa Russell, Uma Thurman, Debra Winger or ultimately, Virginia Madsen, as the sensual Dolly - finding sex in car “ more fun than eating cotton-candy barefoot.” Director Dennis Hopper called it “Last Tango In Texas. Real hot, steamy stuff.” Chicago critic Roger Ebert hailed it as “a superior work in an old tradition.” They wuz right!
- Alec Baldwin, The Hunt For The Red October, 1990.
Passed on the first film of the Thomas Clancy books about CIA's Jack Ryan. "Always my first choice from the moment I read the book," said producer Mace Neufeld. "But he wanted to play the Russian submarine commander." "It was," said Ford, "the better part." By 1992, it was a case of Jack's Back and Ford's got him as he headlined the next two Ryan thrillers.
- Richard Dreyfuss, Always, 1990. Steven Spielberg invariably thinks of Ford first. Harrison's reasons for rejecting offers are: "I didn't know how to do it, or it was too close to something I'd already done or I didn't like the idea." In this case, Spencer Tracy had already done it in 1943. And anyway, Spielberg, flubbed it.
- Warren Beatty, Dick Tracy, 1990. Project went through five writers, two leading men, three directors: Martin Scorsese, Walter Hill, Richard Benjamin before Beatty took it on. All of it.
- Harvey Keitel, The Two Jakes, 1990. "I'd rather find the thing that's written with somebody else in mind and be able to add layers to that."
- James Caan, Misery, 1990. "The idea of playing a victim didn't appeal to a lot of people," said Rob Reiner about Harrison, Warren Beatty, Michael Douglas, etc.
- Patrick Swayze, Ghost, 1990. Me a ghost? Shut the door as you get outa here.
- John Heard, Home Alone, 1990. An astonishing 37 stars (Mel Gibson, Jack Nicholson, Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer, etc) were considered for the forgetful parents - nothing roles in a film written for and duly stolen by the stranded kid, Macauley Culkin.
- Nick Nolte, Cape Fear, 1991. Might have been interested if Steven Spielberg had stayed aboard. Neither the final director Martin Scorsese - nor phone calls from Robert De Niro - could persuade him. Harrison always understands who has the better role.
- Kevin Costner, JFK, 1991.
- Nick Nolte, Cape Fear, 1991. After Spielberg passed the Amblin project to him, Martin Scorsese tried to win over Ford (then, Robert Reford) to play the (this time, unsantised) lawyer Sam Bowden. Scorsese even asked Robert De Niro to call Ford to talk him into co-starring. You talkin’ to me!
- Michael Douglas, Basic Instinct, 1991.
- Sam Neill, Jurassic Park, 1992. Steven Spielberg’s first choice for Alan Grant turn3ed him down? “True story,” revealed Spielberg at a 30th Anniversary Raiders of the Lost Ark screening in September 2011. Sitting next to him, Ford just shrugged. (There exists some “early conceptual paintiung”of Ford and two kids fleeing a dino).
- Tom Berenger, Sliver, 1993 "If you can't do it, you can't do it. No sense regretting it." There would have been much regret about this turkey!
- Sam Shepard, The Pelican Brief, 1993. "Julia Roberts asked me to play her boyfriend - but the timing was not right."
- Morgan Freeman, The Shawshank Redemption, 1993. Keen on being the cellmate of a wrongfully imprisoned Tom Cruise - who became Tim Robbins.
- Liam Neeson, Schlindler's List, 1993. "I was looking for the actual guy," said Steven Spielberg, "as close to the actual man as I could find." Ford had the more satisfying job - presenting Spielberg with (enfin!) his first Best Film Oscar on March 21, 1994.
- Harvey Keitel, Imaginary Crimes, 1994. Over eleven years, Ford, Robert Duvall, and Dustin Hoffman had been up for the hustler-father of two young girls - based on Sheila Ballantyne’s autobiography.
- Dennis Quaid, Dragonheart, 1995. A hard day's knight - opposite a computerised dragon voiced by Indy's dad, Sean Connery!
- Dustin Hoffman, Outbreak, 1995. Thirteen year before, Harrison's Blade Runner had been aimed at Hoffman. Ford won - twice!
- Jeff Bridges, The Mirror Has Two Faces, 1996. With La Barb getting $20m and a cut of the action, Ford would have doubled the budget by co-starring with Barbra Streisand.
- Steven Seagal, Fire Down Below, 1996. Jeb Stuart's script was snapped up by Batman's dynamic duo (producers Peter Guber, Jon Peters) for Harrison or Mel Gibson... Jinxed title. Despite Rita Hayworth, Robert Mitchum, Jack Lemmon, a 1957 film with the same name also deep-sixed.
- Paul McGann, Doctor Who, TV, 1996. Indy Solo hardly needed - or desired - a TV show. The only series he made were for the movies. For its version of the long running BBC cult, Universal insisted on a star name - Carrey, Ford, Hanks, but not Steve Martin who craved the role. The co-producing BBC preferred Brits: Tim Curry, Billy Connolly, Michael Crawford, etc.
- Paul McGann, Doctor Who (The Movie), TV, 1996.
- Nick Nolte, Nightwatch, 1997. Re-treading his own 1994 Danish thriller in America, the original's director, Ole Bernedal, wanted Harrison for Inspector Thomas Albert Cray.
- Tom Sizemore, The Relic, 1997. Another cop, another pass. So, no Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta for director Peter Hyams. .
- Treat Williams, Deep Rising, 1998. Harrison passed - easily. And the film proved he was correct. The script was not worth a rising damn
- James Caan, Poodle Springs, TV, 1998. The final, unfinished Raymond Chandler/Philip Marlowe book came Ford's way after being first aimed at Redford. It ended as a below-par HBO movie.
- Tom Hanks, Saving Private Ryan, 1998. For once, Spielberg needed a name to support/encourage all the necessarily young actors. He thought Ford (naturally) plus Mel Gibson, before joining together for the first time with his friend, Hanks - in a grim WWII drama that led to more of the same in their co-produced HBO masterpiece, Band of Brothers, TV, 2001.
- Richard Gere, Runaway Bride, 1999. Over ten years, most A listers, male and female, had been announced for it. Re-uniting Gere and Julia Roberts was a pretty good idea. Except on-screen.
- Michael Douglas, Traffic, 2000. Steven Soderbergh had "great interactions" with Harrison. "He had really good ideas, all of which we incorporated and all of which worked. He decided it wasn't what he wanted to do right then, but the time he put into it was invaluable to me." Loving Ford’s changes, Douglas returned to the Soderbergh deal... bringing his pregnant wife with him, Catherine Zeta-Jones. Adds Soderbergh: "These things work out of the way they should."
- Russell Crowe, Proof of Life, 2000. When Ford - one of his wife Helen Mirren’s previous co-stars - dropped out, Taylor Hackford took the advice of fellow directors Michael Mann and Ridley Scott and went for Crowe. “All I needed was to see him in action in Gladiator and Inside Man. In one movie, he’s this hulking Roman soldier and, in the other, a brilliantly intelligent boffin. Perfect. But not easy.”
- George Clooney, The Perfect Storm, 2000. Inevitably, Harrison was first choice of his Air Force One maker, German director Wolfgang Petersen.
- Mel Gibson, The Patriot, 2000. Too violent, too damned simple: “The Revolutionary War boiled down to one man seeking revenge.”
- Kurt Russell, Vanilla Sky, 2001. Scenarist-director Cameron Crowe also asked Alec Baldwin, Michael Keaton. But, hey, who wants to be second banana to Tom Cruise!
- Al Pacino, Insomnia, 2001. Ford missed that rarity: a re-make improving upon the (Norwegian) original. And so, Pacino became burnt out cop, looking (said Chicago critic Roger Ebert) “like a man who has lost all hope.”
- Ben Affleck, The Sum of All Fears, 2002.
Jack Ryan Junior! "They produced a script and... I didn't care for it, so they went to somebody else." Affleck was 28. "[Author and exec-producer] Tom Clancy was always complaining about how old I was, so I think at least he'll be gratified." Not with the box-office take that brought a sudden end to the Ryan franchise.
- Ray Liotta, Narc, 2002. Quite keen on this cop, Henry Oaks - for awhile. Liotta gained 25 lbs and so impressed Tom Cruise, he
became exec producer to help win a better release for the result.
- Kevin Costner, Dragonfly, 2002. Another grieving doctor-widower? No thanks, he was taking a full year off movies to enjoy his new lady, Calista Flockhart, and her adopted son, Liam.
- Edward James Olmos, Battlestar Galactica, TV, 2004-09. Harrison Ford, Ed Harris, Sam Shepard were the somewhat lofty goals for the 74 hours of Admiral William Adama. Somewhat early to seduce Ford into a series! Olmos (five years younger) was in by the fourth page of the scenario.
- Val Kilmer, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, 2005. Warners offered a better budget if Harrison could be enticed. He could not. OK, then, Hugh Grant and Benicio Del Torro? For his directing debut, scripter Shane Black was content with Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr as his latest lethal weapons.
- David Morrissey, Basic Instinct 2, 2005. Even recalling him sexy when Presumed Innocent, 1990, this was a no-way casting tale from columnist Liz Smith. “I let myself down,” said Morrissey. “When it came out… I didn’t want to leave the house. It was a very bruising experience… I’d do it again tomorrow. But I’d do it differently because I’d have different tools in my armoury.”
- Viggo Mortensen, A History of Violence, 2005. Canadian director David Cronenberg did not seem to know his main character that well. He was turned down by Harrison, aged 63 and Thomas Jane, 36. Mortensen was 47.
- George Clooney, Syriana, 2005. A simple refusal. A major regret. Of course it was. George won a support Oscar (with first, above-title billing?). He brought a political resonance to the Mid East drama that Ford could never have matched.
- Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 2006. One of Hollywood’s most bizarre ideas. Two more equally insane ideas were... Warren Beatty and Robert Redford!
- Mark Wahlberg, Shooter, 2006. According to William Goldman, the film’s script doctor, Ford, Eastwood, Redford refused the betrayed hero tricked into being another Lee Harvey Oswald. So director Antoine Fuqua went younger, changing Bob Lee Swagger’s betrayal from 70s’ Vietnam to 90s’ Ethiopia. Keanu Reeves, was the first choice.
- Alex Loughlin, Hawaii Five-0, 2010. Five years earlier there had been a lot of chat about a Five-0 movie - headlined by Ford, Michael Douglas or Mel Gibson. However, the island cop Steve McGarrett was rebooted (badly) as a new TV series. Dead in the water after ten episodes.
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Actors (A..Z)