Harrison Ford Reveals Depression During College Led Him to Acting, Was ‘Psychologically Not Well’

Harrison Ford may be one of Hollywood’s most iconic stars, but his path to acting began during a deeply difficult period in his life.

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the Star Wars alum, 83, revealed he stumbled into acting while struggling with depression and isolation in college.

Reflecting on his time as a college student, Ford described rarely leaving his room.

“I had a single room and I had classes to go to, but I rarely ventured out. I would get up out of my single bed, go to a phone, order a pizza, go back and lay down in bed until the pizza came,” he told the outlet in the story, published on Thursday, April 9. “I would eat the pizza, throw the wrappers in the corner, go back to sleep.”

“And on the rare occasion I did go to the classroom, I would often touch the door on the outside of the building, and turn around and walk back,” the 1923 star continued.

Ford attended Ripon College in Wisconsin, where he majored in philosophy, according to reports.

The actor revealed, however, that he was struggling far beyond typical college blues.

“I was more than depressed. I think I was ill. I was socially ill, psychologically not well. And I never found a community at college until I accidentally — in an attempt to get my grade-point-average up — took a class called ‘drama’ without reading the full description of the class,” Ford explained.

He continued: “It started out in the description talking about reading and analyzing plays, but I didn’t read the part where it said that you had to actually be in them as well, so that was a surprise. I’d never done anything like that. And I was surprised that the people that I had considered to be fellow geeks and misfits were, in fact, some of the most interesting people I knew.”

Ford said he found himself “amongst storytellers,” realizing that, “They were doing something that I hadn’t really understood, and they were telling stories about life … and some of them were exceptional in their capacity to understand human behavior.”

“It really changed my world, changed my life,” he concluded.

Ford ultimately dropped out of college before graduating, according to Parade, but that unexpected theater class set him on a path to stardom. He would go on to lead blockbuster franchises including Indiana Jones and Star Wars, and currently stars in the Apple TV+ series Shrinking.