Harrison Ford has done some of the most iconic movies and with those movies have come roles that are not as easily forgettable. The entire duration of his career has been seen progressing, even now as he is 70 years of age. Although he holds a great number of successful movies, there are many of those that don’t live up to the mark. Many might even think them to be underwhelming or just plain bad.
There can also be movies that fall into a completely separate category. Movies that may start off as disastrous but transform along the way. Ford’s The Fugitive sits in that exact category. Interestingly enough, many might now remember the movie to be a great watch and worth investing their time into.
Harrison Ford’s Movie Had Most Of Its Script Improvised
Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones got together to film The Fugitive, a movie that was almost scrapped. The movie may now be loved by fans, but that was the ultimate outcome of the script being redone over and over again. Despite having nine writers at their disposal, there was not a solid script that they were able to come up with, one which could attract a crowd.
“70 per cent of the dialogue was improvised. Every morning I’d talk the scenes through with the actors, we’d improvise, rehearse, then shoot. I’m sure the studio were thinking, ‘What’s going on? Has he got control of this thing?’ They couldn’t keep up with the changes we were making! The marketing guys came up with [“warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse or doghouse”] for Tommy to say in the trailer. It was a great line, so we took it.”
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Since Ford had signed onto the film already, they tried their level best to fix the script again and again. This took them quite some tries and in the end, it was put in the hands of the actor alongside Jones to improvise as many lines as possible. They would go through the lines before the shoot began just to be sure and fix the script along the way.
Warner Bros Did Not Want Harrison Ford’s Beard
Harrison Ford is often seen on-screen with stubble. However, for The Fugitive, the actor had adorned a beard. He was already wearing it before the shooting first began and refused to get rid of it. There were many people who were rather unhappy, especially Warner Bros. Discovery.
“Harrison had a beard at the time, and he wanted to keep the beard. The studio was pissed off. [Ex-Warner Bros. chairman] Bob Daly said, ‘I’m paying for Harrison Ford’s face, I want to see Harrison Ford’s face!’”
The studios made a compromise with the actor, where he would keep the beard until he was to change his appearance within the movie. That idea was also later scrapped because of how many times the script changed. In the end, they also discovered that the beard was not posing as big of a problem as they had initially thought.