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Who's Talking to Chris Wallace
Justice Department Report Shows Systemic Problems at Minneapolis Police Department Led to George Floyd's Murder; Inside the Making of Final Indiana Jones Movie; Chris Wallace interviews Award- Winning Actor Harrison Ford and Legendary Film Composer John Williams. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired June 30, 2023 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[22:00:00]
CHRIS WALLACE, CNN HOST: Tonight, one of the summer's most-anticipated movies is finally out. And we're sitting down with a star.
Harrison Ford explains why this is the final Indiana Jones movie.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRISON FORD, ACTOR: It's time for me to grow up.
WALLACE: Plus, he gets emotional talking about one of his most famous films.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Choked up?
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WALLACE: Explains why at age 80, he's working harder than ever.
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FORD: It's good writing. I was seduced by good writing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: But, first, a Texas woman is shot and killed in her own apartment by three police officers.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Incomprehensible grief.
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WALLACE: The cops are facing murder charges.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're no longer on the job.
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WALLACE: And we're discussing the ongoing battle over police reform.
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JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: Let's come together to finish the job on police reform. Do something.
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WALLACE: With one of the two key figures at the center of the debate.
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SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): This is too important an issue for us to give up.
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WALLACE: Good evening and welcome back to Who's Talking?
This month, more than three years since the murder of George Floyd, the Justice Department exposed major problems inside the Minneapolis Police Department. In a scathing report, DOJ pointed to numerous cases of racial discrimination, excessive use of force, and lack of accountability.
In the weeks, months and now years since Floyd's murder, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have called for police reform. Two senators have led the charge, but so far they've been unable to reach a deal that would pass the Senate.
Tonight, we're talking with one of them, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.
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WALLACE: Senator Cory Booker, welcome. Thank you for coming.
BOOKER: My pleasure, really grateful to be here.
WALLACE: Senator, you have been working with Republican Senator Tim Scott for almost three years now on a package of police reforms, still hasn't been passed. What's holding it up?
BOOKER: You've got to find people on the other side of the aisle that are willing to take those steps with you. I have not found that, whatsoever. But I'm continuing to do the work, and this is too important. And why is it too important? Because you see things like are happening in Minneapolis. You still see too many videotapes of people being treated unjustly and unfairly, that you have police leaders coming ahead and saying, we should have more transparency and more accountability. This is too important of an issue for us to give up.
Now, you are saying why haven't we had this landmark legislation? You and I both know enough about Washington that sometimes it takes a Congress or two Congresses to get something done. Heck, we got anti- lynching legislation done under President Biden. I led the legislation. It took over a century to get that done. But I'm not thinking it's going to take that long. And I'm not deterred by the three years it's taken to keep fighting but we're going to keep pushing, and I'm hopeful even in this Congress we can get something done.
WALLACE: So, Senator Scott, who's leading from the Republican side, and you on the Democratic side, you agreed on banning chokeholds in almost every circumstance and setting federal standards for no-knock warrants. Why couldn't you agree, and the Senate agree, to just pass the things you could agree on rather than holding it up until you agree on everything?
BOOKER: Well, let's get a little more technical. We agreed that chokeholds should not be used. But then what's the penalty for that? Remember, we're a federal government, we can't tell local departments what to do. I said something that was in Tim's original bill, which is let's withhold grants from people that don't pass that legislation. But at the end of the day, we couldn't get agreement on whether to do it with a carrot or a stick.
WALLACE: So, are you saying that even the things that we think you've agreed on, like chokeholds and no-knock warrants, it's that even on the specifics, you haven't?
BOOKER: No, we have not yet had enough agreement to get things over the line.
WALLACE: But when you see enough of these instances of police misconduct and it's three years later and you haven't accomplished anything, it's kind of disheartening, isn't it?
BOOKER: What I'm hoping is that there's more of an urgency in America. If we're ultimately going to have public safety, if we're ultimately going to have justice in our criminal justice system, we have got to come together.
[22:05:01]
And I'm not giving up on that because I wouldn't be the fourth black person ever popularly elected to the United States Senate if my ancestors had given up in the tough battles they faced.
WALLACE: But instead of heading in the right direction, I wonder if we aren't heading away from police reform? And let me put it to you this way. Senator Tim Scott is now running for president. And here's what he had to say recently. Republicans want to provide more resources for our officers. The Democrats want to defund the police. Demoralizing and demonizing law enforcement officers just doesn't work.
Senator, has the issue of police reform now gotten swept up and, in fact, swept away by presidential politics?
BOOKER: I try to judge my colleagues not by the rhetoric they say outside the negotiating room but when I sit down face-to-face with them and what kind of deals we can make. I will not give up on this fight until it's done. Nothing will deter me no matter what somebody says when they're running for president.
WALLACE: Meanwhile, President Biden's son, Hunter, has agreed to a deal where he's going to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges that avoid prosecution on a gun charge, which likely means no prison time. Here is Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.
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REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): It continues to show the two-tier system in America. If you are the president's leading political opponent, DOJ tries to literally put you in jail, give you prison time. If you are the president's son, you get a sweetheart deal.
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WALLACE: Senator, did Hunter Biden get off easy?
BOOKER: Look, you're talking to a guy who has seen the worst of the criminal justice system in America, where you see a two-tier system if you're a Congressperson, a senator, or a president. You can admit to using marijuana but we are a nation that has been arresting young low- income black and brown people, literally thousands in America who can't get jobs for doing things that, for at least or a few at least, former presidents have admitted to doing.
So, I don't know the particulars of this case. I imagine that there were prosecutors, Trump-appointed prosecutor who, like many prosecutors, are going after it with vigor. And they came to a plea deal. And as far as I'm concerned, in the work that I have to do, I think justice has taken its course.
WALLACE: You're talking about a two-tier system of rich and poor. I'm asking you, do you think that there's a two-tier system, a double standard, for prosecuting Republicans and Democrats?
BOOKER: Absolutely not, especially the way that I think President Biden has tried to restore legitimacy to the Justice Department. He hired somebody that had a lot of respect on both sides of the aisle and then stayed away from them. It should tell you a lot about what's going on. And when Hunter Biden cooperated with authorities, clearly, we do not see that in the case of Donald Trump right now.
WALLACE: I want to talk about Cory Booker. You have led quite a life. And I want to start with your parents, who are both IBM executives, and they were part of a sting operation to become the first black family to integrate a neighborhood in New Jersey. First of all, how did the sting operation work?
BOOKER: It was a extraordinary group of black and white folks who used to meet in the living room of the Fair Housing Council and say that we're going to send a black couple out. And they are told this house is sold or pulled off marker or basically lied to, we'll send a white couple to see if what they were told was true.
And so my parents fell in love with this home in a place that they knew had great public schools, and they were told the house was sold. And the white couple behind them found out the house was still for sale was able to help to expose the real estate people.
WALLACE: So, they go to the closing, and instead of the white couple, your parents show up. Is it true that the real estate agent for the house was so angry that he punched your parents' lawyer?
BOOKER: Punched my dad's lawyer, Marty Friedman, in the face, and sicced a dog, his Doberman, on my dad. And it was a melee, as I was told, things breaking and the like, and they were able to get out of there. As they were leaving, the real estate agent starts begging my father, please don't move here, you can't do it, you'll ruin this community, your people don't live here, you're not going to have a good experience, so on, so forth.
WALLACE: Out of high school, and you were an all-American high school football player, you're recruited by a few kind of small colleges that people may never have heard of, Notre Dame, Michigan, UCLA, you end up at Stanford as a tight end. You say you were the most overrated high school football player in the country. So, the football career at Stanford didn't go so well?
BOOKER: I had incredible experiences that I'll never forget. My best career game against Notre Dame when they were ranked number one in the country and we upset them, catching a touchdown pass against USC.
[22:10:03]
So, I had highlights and moments I'll never forget.
But even though I got letters to come try out at Combines, I knew that football was my ticket, not my destination.
WALLACE: Well, it was your ticket, both your academics and your sports, to oxford in England where you were a Rhodes scholar.
BOOKER: Yes.
WALLACE: How was that experience? You're really an underachiever, are you?
BOOKER: You know, my mom has the saying, behind every successful child is an astonished parent. She can't believe a lot of things I'm doing. But --
WALLACE: So, how was that experience?
BOOKER: Unbelievable. My first two years ever living overseas just expanded my mind in so many ways. I met some of the most extraordinary people. Oxford is really an international university. And then I traveled for the first time to two dozen-plus countries, from Asia to Europe, to North Africa. It was this expanding period for me. And I can't tell you how thankful I am to have had it.
WALLACE: In 2006, you were -- second time, you lost the first time you ran. You were elected mayor of Newark. And you became known as the superhero mayor. I mean, there literally was a case where you rescued a woman from a burning home. And then during a blizzard, you went out and you shoveled snow and helped stranded motorists who had been caught in the snow.
And I guess my question is, some mayors stay behind the desk in city hall, why did you take to the streets?
BOOKER: Well, I started patrolling neighborhoods until 4:00 in the morning. I moved for a period of time to live in a section of the city that had the most shootings. I wanted Newarkers to know there wasn't an end to the lengths I would go to help our city achieve its truth and its potential. Newark is an extraordinary place that was saddled with an awful reputation but had real challenges. And I wanted to be out there dealing with them.
But I will just caution you on one thing. You know, these were the early days of Twitter. And I challenged my residents, tweet me about a problem, I'll solve it. And so we found out about traffic lights before traffic engineers. It ended up being a great system of accountability. Potholes before my road crews found out about them.
So, I think that in this world where social media is such a dark place, where we see a lot of our corporate models and entertainment are focusing on the negative and the fear, just people having a lens into people, what happens every day in America, people helping people, neighbors helping neighbors, it's extraordinary. And when you're a mayor you see it, and I'm glad a lot of people got to discover Newark through me and how special a place it is.
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WALLACE: You can watch more of my fully conversation with Senator Booker streaming right now on Max, where we explore more of his remarkable life story and the promise he made me that took him seven years to fulfill.
But up next, we go from politics to the premiere of one of the biggest movies of the summer, the fifth and final Indiana Jones movie. Actor Harrison Ford like you've never seen him a real and raw conversation about his life, his career and letting go of his famous role.
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WALLACE: Is it a little bit bittersweet to have to say goodbye to him?
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[22:15:00]
WALLACE: Indiana Jones is hanging up his whip and fedora, but Harrison Ford is definitely not. He's back in action starring in the fifth and final Indiana Jones movie, after playing the lead in the Yellowstone prequel 1923 and showing his comedy chops in the T.V. show, Shrinking.
Now, Ford reflects on his most famous roles, gets emotional about one of his biggest movies and explains why, at age 80, he's working as hard as ever.
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WALLACE: Harrison Ford, welcome. I have been looking forward to sitting down with you. And one of the reasons is because people, including me, can't wait to hear you talk about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth in the series. And before you say a word, let's take a look at you in action.
You said that you wanted this end to the saga to be ambitious with your character.
FORD: Yes.
WALLACE: What does that mean, and do you think this movie pulls that off?
FORD: I meant that I wanted it to be character-driven, and I wanted us to confront the question of age straight on, not to, you know -- not to hide my age but to take advantage of it in the telling of the story.
[22:20:00]
WALLACE: And do you think the movie pulls that off, that what you had hoped for?
FORD: I feel very strongly that it does.
WALLACE: One thing that I loved about the movie, among many things, is the fact that there were inside jokes for those of us who have followed you and followed Indy since Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981. And this -- we're going to show a scene from '81, you then and you now, take a look.
The lesson seems to be, never bring a sword or a whip to a gunfight.
FORD: To a gunfight, yes, I think you're right. That guy, the swordsman --
WALLACE: Right, in the original --
FORD: -- in the original Raiders had worked for months to perfect his skills with the scimitar. And we were to have filmed a four-day whip and scimitar fight in a marketplace. And I was suffering from dysentery, and so were many members of the crew. Not Steven, because every time he went in the shower, he put gaffer tape over his mouth.
WALLACE: Steven Spielberg.
FORD: And traveled with a trunk full of spaghettiOs.
WALLACE: But he didn't have dysentery.
FORD: But he didn't have dysentery. So, it was up to me to say, listen, I can't stay out of the dressing room for very long, should we think about cutting this down? Let's just shoot this son of a bitch. And Steven said, I was just thinking about that myself.
WALLACE: And it worked like gangbusters.
FORD: And we did, yes. But it was a terrible disappointment to the poor guy that had been working all this time to perfect his skills.
WALLACE: Well, I hope you paid him for the five days.
FORD: I'm sure they did, yes.
WALLACE: You have said that playing Indy was -- is a joy and has been a joy for you.
FORD: Yes, it has.
WALLACE: Why, and is it a little bit bittersweet to have to say goodbye to him?
FORD: No. No, it's time for me to grow up. Six years ago, I thought maybe we ought to take a shot at making another one. And I wanted it to be about age, because I think that rounds out the story that we've told, and speaking to this issue of age. Not making jokes about it, but making it a real thing.
WALLACE: I am also a big fan of 1923, the prequel to Yellowstone, where you play Jacob Dutton, who's trying to hold on to his ranch against the ravages and threats from progress. Take a look.
Do you ever feel that way in real life as your work goes from movies to streaming and we face a world of artificial intelligence? Are you the kind of person who embraces change or kind of holds it at a distance?
FORD: I mean, when it's helpful, I'm happy to have it, and when it's not, I'm disappointed that we've chosen to use it.
WALLACE: Are there instances that you think --
FORD: I think it's not a question of the technology, it's how you use it. I mean, we have the capacity to generate more enemies than anyone would ever face before, more airplanes in the sky than anyone would ever see. But what happens is you lose human scale. And if you lose that, you lose the ability -- the audience's ability to experience it consistent with the characters, the story that you're telling. And it's almost -- it's too easy.
WALLACE: Speaking of technology, I don't want to give away too much of Indy 5, but the movie begins, well, towards the end of World War II. You're back fighting the Nazis as you were in Raiders of the Lost Ark. [22:25:01]
And through some technological wizardry, 80-year-old Harrison Ford looks exactly like 40-year-old Harrison Ford. Do you understand how they did that?
FORD: Not completely, but it is 40-year-old Harrison Ford. And that's why it looks so good. Lucasfilm, I've been working for Lucasfilm most of my adult life. Every frame of film, those that are used in the films that we made together and those that are not, every frame of film could be mined with, here we go again, artificial intelligence. And they could find the right angle, the right light, so that's my mouth, my eyes, my face married, and it's not photoshopped or anything. It doesn't look that way.
WALLACE: No.
FORD: It's real.
WALLACE: I literally am thinking to myself as I'm watching it, did he shoot parts of Indiana Jones 5 back when he was doing Raiders of the Last Ark, because it really was seamless?
FORD: It was beautiful, yes.
WALLACE: You've made more than 70 films which have grossed more than $9 billion. And, obviously, the movies were great, but do you have any thoughts about why it is that for so many years, so many people have wanted to sit in the dark and watch you?
FORD: They're not watching me, they're watching a movie in which I play various characters. I think that because I was 35, 40 years old, and really the height of Hollywood's influence over the culture and vice versa, we were enjoying a very good time to be in the movie business.
WALLACE: Well, I have another theory about this that I want to test with you. I think your secret sauce as Harrison Ford is your vulnerability. And I want to explore this a little bit with you. Here's a scene of you as Jack Ryan in the middle of an ambush by the drug cartel in Clear and Present Danger. I think you look as scared and shaken as we think we would if, God forbid, we should ever be in that situation.
FORD: I've always -- I've been accused of playing heroes. I don't play heroes. I play a CIA man or a doctor or whatever it is, but you cannot play a hero. You have to play your audience. You have to bring your audience into that moment. And what -- and you want them to feel emotionally consistent with the characters. Because then we're not talking about the story, the audience is immersed in the story. It's a whole different thing.
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WALLACE: Coming up, the story behind how Harrison Ford ended up getting his breakthrough role in Star Wars. And he unexpectedly gets emotional when we show a scene from one of his most famous films.
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WALLACE: I get choked up every time I see that scene in that movie.
FORD: I haven't seen that for 30 years.
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[22:30:00]
WALLACE: Besides Indiana Jones, one of Harrison Ford's most famous roles is President James Marshall in the movie, "Air Force One", in which the plane is hijacked by terrorists with the first family on board. We continue our conversation with Harrison taking us inside the most intense scene in the film.
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HARISSON FORD, PRESIDENT JAMES MARSHALL IN "AIR FORCE ONE": We're soldiers. You take my life. I'll come to fight. I'll do it. I'll do it.
WALLACE: I get choked up every time I see that scene in that movie.
HARRISON FORD, AMERICAN ACTOR: I haven't seen that for, I guess, 30 years. But Wolfgang Peterson passed away recently. Wonderful director. I mean, that's movie-making.
WALLACE: You are choked up. Why? Because that brings back--
FORD: No, because I'm-- I'm easy.
WALLACE: Well, take us inside the process. How do you make that happen as an actor? I mean, is it that you just get yourself in the state that Gary Oldman isn't an actor, he's the terrorist, and that those people are really -- because I'm, you know, I don't react as the president on Air Force One. I react as a dad doing anything I could to save my daughter. And you know when he says, I'll do it. Yeah, this isn't what a president would do, but this is what a dad's gonna do.
FORD: You know, I really, I don't know. I don't know how I do it. It just happens.
[22:35:00]
WALLACE: You don't get yourself in a certain mind state of--
FORD: The state of mind is this is what's happening in this room. This is real. How do you feel? That's all. What are the words? Let's do it.
WALLACE: Well, you do it extraordinarily well. Back in the mid-70s, you were making more money as a carpenter than you were as an actor. And you were hired to read lines for people who were going to be actors.
FORD: I wasn't even hired. I was just asked to do it as a favor. I was doing some carpentry work for Dean Tavolaris, who was Francis Ford Coppola's art director. He'd had a beautiful entrance built for Frances' new offices. He couldn't find a carpenter to install it and I said I don't want to be in there with them being a carpenter and get them all confused among-- you know, I want these guys that think of it-- he's my friend so--trying to go about this and he said please, please, I need to get this done. I said, okay, I'll do it but I'm only gonna work at night.
WALLACE: And nobody is there.
FORD: And nobody is there. And so, at 8 o'clock one morning, I'm sweeping up and putting away my tools. And he walks, George Lucas and Richard Dreyfus to do the first of the interviews for Star Wars. George had told all the agents of the people who were in American Graffiti that he was looking for new faces. And then he walks with Richard Dreyfus.
WALLACE: I remember I had a part in American Graffiti.
FORD: You did. You know they chose two different trios for the parts that Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and I played. Yes--
WALLACE: Who was it? Who were they--
FORD: And so, they thought of this as an ensemble. Well, I don't know who the other characters were but if I had not been chosen the other would have been Chris Walken. Which would have been fantastic. It would have given a dark turn.
WALLACE: I don't somehow see you and Chris Walken as the same.
FORD: But then I think that we weren't looking for the same, you know, product from the recipe.
WALLACE: Well, here you were, you got the part, and here you are in the movie.
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UNKNOWN: Why don't you all run him? I thought you said this thing was fast?
FORD: Watch your mouth, kiddo. You're gonna find yourself floating home. We'll be safe enough once we make the jump to hyperspace. Besides, I know a few maneuvers. We'll lose him. This is when the fun begins.
UNKNOWN: How long before you could make it jump to light speed?
FORD: Take a few moments to get the coordinates from the navicomputer.
UNKNOWN: Is Kitty at the rate they're gaining?
FORD: Travel through hyperspacing isn't like dusting crops, boy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Fair to say that you were, forgive me, the smartass outside all the mythology of "The Force".
FORD: I have no problem with that description. It was. That was my part. I, and I, you know, people say, did you think this was gonna work because the British crew were walking around going, what? They thought it was ludicrous. And of course, it is ludicrous but in a good way. And I kept thinking, this is a fairy tale. This is going to work because this is a fairy tale.
Alec Guinness is a wise old warrior. Mark Hamill, the callow youth. Carrie Fisher, the beautiful princess and the smartass. You always have to have a smartass.
WALLACE: And you played it very well.
FORD: I think I had the chops.
WALLACE: Then George Lucas decides he's gonna make another movie, "Raiders of the Lost Ark". And once again, he doesn't want people that have been in prior movies. So, it's going to be Tom Selleck. And Tom Selleck says, I want to do it, but I got a TV series. Here you are.
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WALLACE: Which raises the question, how often over the years in your career have you done your own stunts and how often have you been hurt?
[22:40:00]
FORD: I don't do stunts. I do physical acting. I do running, jumping, falling down, rolling on the floor with sweaty men. That's the kind of thing I do. And I like to play physical characters. But there's always somebody to say, hey, this is, we, you know, we can't let you do this. Somebody's going to get hurt. Somebody might get hurt. Well, all their best efforts. I've taken some lumps on over the years. Yeah, I've, but we've always been able to finish the movie and we've always come back and it's worked.
WALLACE: Coming up, the real-life lumps Harrison Ford received after a small plane he was flying lost power and crashed. And you'll want to stay tuned to see what had him reacting like this.
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FORD: Chris, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.
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[22:45:00]
WALLACE: Now, that we've covered Harrison Ford's remarkable career, we get personal. Starting with perhaps his biggest off-camera passion, flying airplanes. And what happened in real life, not the movies, when one of his flights went terribly wrong?
In 2015, you were flying a plane. And the plane lost power. I want to make it clear, it was the plane's fault, not your fault. And I know you're sensitive about that.
FORD: Well, you know, the plane crashed. I didn't.
WALLACE: Right.
FORD: Well, you were. I did and I didn't.
WALLACE: How scary was that? And how badly were you hurt there?
FORD: This is bizarre to say and I will just take a chance saying it. I wasn't scared at all. Not because I was brave but because I'd been thinking about it my whole career as a pilot, and every pilot does. And I heard in my ear, the voice of one of my mentors in aviation, Bob Hoover, famous air show pilot, who always said, fly the plane as far as you can into the crash.
Okay, Bob, I got busy. Unfortunately, in the crash, I suffered a brain injury and had retrograde amnesia. So, I wish I could remember all of what I went through. I might have been scared at some point, but I don't remember when I should have been the most scared. I was prepared, prepared by my-- by the people who trained me and because I take that, I take it very seriously, flying very seriously.
WALLACE: What is it about flying? What's the appeal to you?
FORD: It's a blend of freedom and responsibility. If you take the responsibility, you gain the freedom. You enter the third dimension. We're living a two-dimensional life here, man. You get up there and you look down and you see where you live. Not literally necessarily, but the--
WALLACE: You know that's a totally different perspective.
FORD: So, you know, I'm-- I had always wanted to fly when I was in college. I took three lessons. It was about seven bucks an hour with the, you know, the rental for the airplane and an instructor because I'm pretty old. But I ran out of money. Couldn't afford it. Years later, you know, I could. And I had an airplane of my own that was flown by other people. And I'm sitting in the back one day and I'm saying, wait, I go over and say, hey, Terry, my pilot at the time, Terry, you got to teach me to fly. And he was, and you could see his life flashed before his eyes, I said, I'm sorry, man, it's a condition of employment. And they did, and sure enough, they trained me out of a job for them.
WALLACE: Right. Train your successor. FORD: And I have loved flying. I have loved it. It is just-- I was 52 years old when I started to fly. And I didn't know that I could learn anything, you know. And it was gratifying to just go back and really learn something.
WALLACE: You're also very active on the issue of climate change and the environment.
FORD: Yes, Sir.
WALLACE: How much does it bother you to see the degree to which we are ignoring the threat or some people turning it in?
FORD: Chris, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.
WALLACE: I get the network reference but I mean--
FORD: I'm mad. It's crazy. We know what the problem is.
[22:50:00]
We're not doing anything about it. We're not doing enough about it. We're continuing to live our lives in spite of what we know. We have been ripping the guts out of this planet. For our, you know, for our-- for the benefit of our short lifetimes, we need to think about the life of the planet. And we need to, well, we need to elect people as our leaders who believe in science.
WALLACE: The only thing that I find odd about that remark is that it needs to be said. Right? That should even be in doubt that we need--
FORD: It has to be said again. Still.
WALLACE: Right. Finally, let's talk about age. You're 80. You're--
FORD: You talking to me?
WALLACE: Yes.
FORD: You talking to me?
WALLACE: Yeah, okay, okay, De Niro. You're 80, about to turn 81. You're busier than ever. You've got movie projects. You've got TV projects. How come?
FORD: Well, I stumbled into a vein of really good writing, and I could not resist it. And I am working harder than I want to work. Longer, you know, it's taking longer to fulfill the obligations that I've acquired. It's just, it's good writing. I was seduced by good writing.
WALLACE: Any thought about retiring? Look at me like I asked. This is going so well up to this point.
FORD: I don't do well when I don't have work. I just, I love to work. I love to feel useful. It's my Jones. I want to be helpful.
WALLACE: After the break, from the man who played "Indiana Jones" to the man who helped bring the film to life.
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WALLACE: Finally, tonight, before my conversation with Harrison Ford, I got to attend the "Indiana Jones 5" premiere in Los Angeles. And just when we thought the screening was about to start, we got a surprise. That's legendary composer John Williams conducting the famous theme music from the "Indiana Jones" franchise. All of us in the audience were thrilled to watch him in person leading a symphony orchestra.
His work has played a big role in decades of movies from "Jaws" to "Star Wars" to "Schindler's List". Earlier this year, I sat down with Williams to talk about the difference music makes to a movie. Spielberg says that the two of you had a performance, an appearance, in a concert where you played a scene from one of the Raiders movies without any music and that frankly he says it was long and boring and then you played it with the music, you played it live with the orchestra and it was a totally different experience.
JOHN WILLIAMS, LEGENDARY FILM COMPOSER: It is completely different. It will compress the time certainly, particularly if it's quick music. And it seemed like the train, the one you referred to is I think about four minutes. Running it without the music it will seem like six minutes.
So, it's almost like riding a horse. If your tempo is exactly right you don't feel it. If you're fighting the editorial rhythm of the film, metrically, one way or another, too fast, too slow, you don't have that liquid synchronization that you want.
WALLACE: You are now working with Steven Spielberg on the score for "Indiana Jones 5", and there's a lot of talk that this might be your final film. Is that true?
WILLIAMS: Well, it's hard to say it's true or untrue. I'm not anxious to go into another film but Steven is a hard man to say no to. He doesn't know quite what his next project is going to be. Also, I would find it very hard if he says to me, I don't want to do this without you. I don't know. So, I, Chris, I'm just happy to and grateful to be working in music.
There's one thing I would say about working in film. A film like "Indiana Jones" can take six months. It's hard to, it's that complicated a process. Six months when you're 91 is a long time. So, you're asking someone to make a commitment for a large percentage of the time, earthly time you may have left, you know, another aspect.
But right now, I feel healthily flexible whether or not it would be my last film I can't say. If he should turn around tomorrow with another "Schindler's List", you probably have to fight me to keep me away from it.
WALLACE: Thank you for watching. You can catch my full interviews with John Williams, as well as Senator Cory Booker and Harrison Ford, anytime you want on Max. We'll be back here on CNN after the July 4th holiday. Join us then to find out who's talking next.
