Harrison Ford has played his fair share of action hero roles in the last five decades, but he is taking things a little easier in his new role. No, obviously not his upcoming appearance as Thaddeus Ross/Red Hulk in Captain America: Brave New World, or his return to Yellowstone in the prequel series 1923. We are talking about his new whisky commercial directed by Joel Edgerton, which finds Ford donning a kilt and refusing to do any of that action stuff, as Edgerton explained in a recent interview with Variety.
Edgerton’s latest directorial effort may have one of the biggest stars in Hollywood in the lead role, but it is not a big screen epic by any means. Instead, the ad campaign for Glenmorangie Scotch Whisky finds the former Indiana Jones and Han Solo star taking it easy with some meditation, cycling and chilling by a fire among other things. But how did someone like Ford, with all his grumpiness in tow, come to appear in the ad in the first place? Edgerton explained:
“I’d watched a lot of his interviews, and I realized that true or false, there’s a persona of Harrison’s that is quite gruff and, you know, grumpy, but he’s a bit like an avocado. He’s rock solid on the outside but he’s very soft in the middle. He has an emotional softness and a sensitivity and a humanity that he then covers with this sort of prickly outside.”
This is something that Edgerton was given a taste of in their first meeting, when Ford’s dour wit led to him to be exactly who the director wanted him to be. He added:
“We had lunch. I was with this gang when he got there. While he was shaking my hand, he said, ‘I heard they want me to ride a horse and fly a plane, and I’m not doing any of that.’ I felt good because that’s exactly what the first spot was going to be about — him going, ‘I don’t want to do what they want me to do.’ We hit it off and by the end of the meeting, he was like, ‘I’ll do whatever you want me to do.’”
Joel Edgerton Leaned Fully Into Harrison Ford’s “Older Dude” Persona
While many ad campaigns are fronted by young or middle-aged stars, Edgerton had no worries about working with the octogenarian on his Glenmorangie campaign. In fact, he wanted to lean into Ford’s age as much as possible. He explained:
“Campaigns are usually about beautification and wish fulfillment, and we often then get actors or celebrities, and we try and age them down or we make them more beautiful. There’s an aspect to this campaign that is super subtle, which I think is about embracing who you are and acknowledging your fears, whether you’re scared you’re not cool enough or you’re an older person now and you just want to avoid certain things. I was like, “Harrison is an older dude. Let’s not try and hide it.” And by the way, we didn’t have enough time to spend on all that crap. But, yeah, be who you are. We should love everybody for who they are, whatever their age, shape, whether their hair is tussled or not.”
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Ford will certainly be getting more than his hair tussled when he smacks down with Anthony Mackie’s Captain America in Brave New World this February, but for those who like to see an older gentleman doing the things older gentlemen do, then you’re probably going to enjoy his all-too-short “Once Upon a Time in Scotland” ad campaign.