Do we like Harrison Ford?
Our score: 8 out of 10. No harmful words or company turned up, and there is decades of conservation work, but the record on LGBTQ+ issues is thin.
Ford grew up in Chicago and credits the Field Museum, the Museum of Science & Industry and Lincoln Park Zoo with sparking his interest in nature. He went on to Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and decades later he is still a vice chair of Conservation International. The nature kid never really left.
His best-known stoush came in 2013, when he was filming an episode of Years of Living Dangerously in Indonesia. He grilled the forestry minister about illegal logging and climate change, and the minister said he was shocked and complained he had no time to review the questions. Local media reported Ford was accused of harassing state institutions and threatened with deportation. Fair to say he picked a fight with a government over trees, which is a decent kind of trouble.
On the harm check, nothing nasty turned up. He told The Guardian in 2025 that Trump's climate stance scared him and said he didn't know of a greater criminal in history. In 2024 he also recorded a video backing Kamala Harris, and in a 2025 Variety interview he said the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Nothing hostile to LGBTQ+ people turned up either, but the record there is thin, so that's an absence, not a rainbow flag.
The most recent public moment was his May 2026 commencement speech at Arizona State, where he received an honorary degree. He told graduates nature doesn't need people but people need nature to survive. Fox News framed the speech as partisan and noted his history of criticising Trump, while ASU said universities don't favour one perspective. Where you land depends on whether you hear it as politics or as plain common sense about the planet.
The fresh headline is not about him. A former Shrinking assistant director filed a lawsuit alleging an executive producer groped her at a June 2024 wrap party and that she was later fired. Warner Bros. Television said an independent investigation found the claims unsubstantiated, and the suit is unproven in court. A search for ties to Daily Wire or Angel Studios style projects found nothing, so his recent company looks mainstream.
The good stuff is real. He was given the inaugural E.O. Wilson Legacy Award for conservation leadership at the Field Museum in 2025, and Operation Smile gave him an award for his philanthropy the same year. ASU cited his work protecting the planet's health and his humanitarian aviation service when it gave him an honorary doctorate. That's a long way past a tax-deductible photo op.