There are many memorable lines in the Star Wars movies, but perhaps one of the most iconic exchanges in the entire saga took place in The Empire Strikes Back moments before Han Solo got frozen in carbonite.
Harrison Ford came back a couple of years ago to portray Han in The Force Awakens one last time, but the scruffy-looking nerf herder’s last appearance in Star Wars was actually in The Rise of Skywalker, where he encouraged his son to let go of his Kylo Ren persona and embrace the light again. But even before appearing in Disney’s Sequel Trilogy, Harrison Ford was already a pop culture icon by bringing the character of Han to life in the Original Trilogy.
In fact, there are a lot of scenes in those movies that stood the test of time and managed to become everlastingly embedded into people’s memories, such as the scene at the end of The Empire Strikes Back where Leia confesses her love to Han, to which he simply replies, “I know.”
What made this intimate scene between Leia and Han even more unforgettable was the actor’s improvised response to Carrie Fisher’s line, and Ford has obviously been asked about this moment many times in his career. But in a recent interview while promoting his new film, Call of the Wild, the actor’s dry sense of humor came to display again when he confused carbonite with kryptonite.
Even when called out on it, Harrison gave the perfect response:
“…so I’m about to be frozen in kryptonite —“
“Carbonite.”
*Harrison sighs deeply*
“Kryptonite, Carbonite. I just work here.” pic.twitter.com/pt2E4l4z1z
— Jake Hamilton (@JakesTakes) February 15, 2020
This reply perfectly mirrors Ford’s usual nonchalant approach to details in the context of these fictional worlds. We all remember how the actor answered the question of ‘who shot first?’ in 2015 by casually saying: “I don’t care.” And in another recent interview with USA Today, he said that he didn’t know what a Force ghost was, nor did he care to find out any time soon.
At the end of the day, though, and in spite of the fact that he doesn’t seem to care about the important difference between a galaxy far, far away and Superman, fans will always continue to revere Harrison Ford for his part in bringing the world of Star Wars to life.