Harrison Ford went through a dark time with his mental health journey, but a specific college class changed his life for the better.
CANNES, FRANCE – MAY 18: Harrison Ford attends “The Expendables 3” premiere during the 67th Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2014 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)
While attending Ripon College in Wisconsin, the ‘Shrinking’ star was struggling with what he now knows was depression. “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. I would eat the pizza, throw the wrappers in the corner, go back to sleep,” he told the “Awards Chatter” podcast. “I had a single room and I had classes to go to, but I rarely ventured out. 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.”
“I was more than depressed. I think I was ill,” Ford added. “I was socially ill, psychologically not well.”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 01: Honoree Harrison Ford accepts the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award onstage during the 32nd Annual Actor Awards at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on March 01, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)
Of course, this wasn’t a recipe for a good grade point average, so Ford went looking for an easy A when he learned of a class called “drama,” which he thought he’d like based on the description. “It started out in the description talking about reading and analyzing plays,” he recalled. “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.”
Ford was also surprised by the people he found himself surrounded by in the class. “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,” he said. “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.”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 26: Harrison Ford attends the premiere of Apple TV+’s “Shrinking” at Directors Guild Of America on January 26, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)
That class was the reason Ford became the actor he is today. “I think I simply found my place amongst storytellers. It really changed my world, changed my life,” he explained.
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