Before he became a Hollywood legend, Harrison Ford was fighting a quiet battle.
Speaking on The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast on Thursday, April 9, the 83-year-old actor revealed he had severe depression during his college years — a period he now says “changed my life.”
The Star Wars alum opened up about his time at Ripon College in Wisconsin, where he often isolated himself in his dorm room. “I would get up out of my single bed, go to a phone, order a pizza, go back and lie down in bed until the pizza came,” Ford recalled. “I would eat the pizza, throw the wrappers in the corner, go back to sleep.”
He admitted things were worse than they seemed. “I was more than depressed. I think I was ill,” Ford said. “I was socially ill, psychologically not well.”
The actor rarely attended classes and struggled to find a sense of belonging — until a drama class unexpectedly shifted everything. Initially taken to improve his grades, the class introduced him to acting for the first time.
“I think I simply found my place amongst storytellers,” Ford said, adding, “It really changed my world, changed my life.”
The Indiana Jones star has previously called acting his “calling” as he opened up about his mental health struggles during his Lifetime Achievement Awards acceptance speech earlier this year.
“In my third year of college, I was a little lost. I was failing at school. I felt isolated and alone,” he admitted. “And then I found the company of people putting on plays – storytellers… I found a calling – a life in storytelling. An identity in pretending to be other people.
