Harrison Ford’s health – gruesome injuries, ‘aging backwards’ and therapy dig

Harrison Ford is surprisingly very healthy for an octogenarian.

The Indiana Jones actor has been credited with “ageing backwards”, and thankfully shared some of his fitness regime and healthy diet with fans.

Harrison confessed on Ellen in 2020: “I don’t work out like crazy. I just, I work out a bit. I ride bikes and play tennis a little bit.”

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But he has cut his diet down to only “vegetables and fish”, explaining that he totally cut meat out.

Harrison said: “I just decided I was tired of eating meat… and I know it’s not really good for the planet… and it’s not really good for me.”

But he’s not been totally able to avoid health problems – especially as he continues to perform his own stunts for his Hollywood blockbusters.

Gruesome injuries

It’s not surprising that, over the years, Star Wars actor Harrison has suffered a few on-set injuries.

While filming Raiders of the Lost Ark back in 1981, the star tore an ACL in one of his knees when he was fighting a huge German mechanic on an aeroplane.

Harrison was “run over by the landing gear” and injured the knee in the scene.

And while filming Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom a couple of years later in 1984, the star suffered a spinal injury while riding elephants – and had to quit filming for five weeks to get special treatment on his back.

One of his most brutal on-set boo-boos came filming Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015, when a hydraulic door was accidentally activated when he was standing underneath.

The door broke his leg – but came very close to killing the actor.

He described it as “a f***ing great hydraulic door which closed at light speed”, with prosecutor Andrew Marshall claiming during a court hearing: “It could have killed somebody. The fact that it didn’t was because an emergency stop was activated.”

According to the Health and Safety Executive, the door’s force would have “been comparable to the weight of a small car”.

Foodles Production pleaded guilty to the incident.

Ford has also hurt himself on the set of the latest Indiana Jones flick, The Dial of Destiny, and filming had to be halted while his injured shoulder recovered.

Parkinson’s support

When starring alongside Jason Segel in the Apple TV+ drama Shrinking, Harrison played Paul – a senior therapist.

His character suffers from Parkinson’s disease – something Harrison was helping to bring awareness to through his first scripted television comedy.

In real life, 81-year-old Ford does not suffer from the disease. His character was inspired by his co-creator Brett Goldstein’s father, who “has something called Lewy bodies, which is what Robin Williams had”.

Creator Bill Lawrence told SlashFilm that the 75-year-old has a “degenerative hallucination kind of dementia”.

Mental health

Rumours have abounded for years that Ford suffers from “severe social anxiety”, after fans reacted to his brusque demeanour during interviews.

But the star finally put that speculation to rest, telling The Hollywood Reporter: “I don’t have a social anxiety disorder. I have an abhorrence of boring situations.

“I was shy when I first went onstage – I wasn’t shy, I was f***ing terrified. My knees would shake so badly, you could see it from the back of the theatre. But that’s not social anxiety. That’s being unfamiliar with the territory.”

He added that he is very “anti-therapy” when it comes to his own mental health.

Harrison said: “My opinion is not of the profession, it’s of the practitioner. There are all kinds of therapy. I’m sure many of them are useful to many people.

“I’m not anti-therapy for anybody — except for myself. I know who the f*** I am at this point.”

Daughter’s ‘devastating’ epilepsy

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Star Wars icon Ford teared up when discussing his daughter Georgia’s battle with epilepsy, which began when she started suffering seizures as a child.

He told NY Daily News: “When you have a loved one who suffers from this disease, it can be devastating.

“You know how it affects their lives, their future, their opportunities and you want desperately to find mitigation. You want to find a way that they can live a comfortable and effective life.”

The actor described a terrifying seizure Georgia, 32, suffered on a beach in Malibu, where she was found by a Hollywood director.

But she wasn’t diagnosed until she suffered an attack in London, when a doctor finally “prescribed the right medication and therapy”.

Ford said in 2016: “[Georgia] has not had a seizure in eight years”.

Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk