Harrison Ford has been named as the recipient of SAG-AFTRA's highest honor: the SAG-AFTRA Life Achievement Award for his career and humanitarian accomplishments. The 83-year-old actor will be presented with the award at the 2026 Actor Awards Presented by SAG-AFTRA.
The Star Wars and Indiana Jones actor, who has also been Emmy-nominated for his work on Apple TV's comedy Shrinking, said he was "deeply honored to be chosen" and acknowledged that the honor, which was chosen by his peers, "means a great deal".
"I’ve spent most of my life on film sets, working alongside incredible actors and crews, and I’ve always felt grateful to be part of this community," the father-of-five added.
Given annually to an actor who fosters the "finest ideals of the acting profession," the Life Achievement Award has in recent years been given to Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Barbra Streisand and Helen Mirren. Robert de Niro was the last male actor to receive the honor in 2019.
SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin said: "Harrison Ford is a singular presence in American life; an actor whose iconic characters have shaped world culture. His career has been endlessly exciting, always returning to his love of acting. We are honored to celebrate a legend whose impact on our craft is indelible."
Harrison is one of the most recognizable and influential actors of the last six decades. He began working in the 1960s but was unhappy with the roles he was offered, and became a self-taught professional carpenter working for clients including Joan Didion and her husband John Gregory Dunne.
However, in the 1970s he met George Lucas, who cast him in the cult 1973 classic American Graffiti, and their relationship changed Harrison's life forever, going from the man who built shelves for celebrities to a celebrity himself. Harrison soon met Francis Ford Coppola who gave him small roles in his next two films, The Conversation (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979), and during this time, he appeared as Han Solo in the 1977 film Star Wars, an epic space-opera that is one of the most groundbreaking films of all time, and the franchise spanned the next five decades, making him a household name.
At the same time, he became known as Indiana Jones, the fearless (unless there was a snake) archaeologist who would go on thrilling adventures to find powerful relics. It solidified the actor as a leading man, and throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he had a string of hits, including Witness (1985), Working Girl (1987), The Fugitive (1993), Sabrina (1995), and Air Force One (1997).
Throughout these years, he was married twice, and welcomed four children. In 2002, he met Calista Flockhart at the Golden Globe Awards, and the pair married on June 15, 2010. They are the parents of a son, born in 2001, whom the Ally McBeal actress had adopted before meeting Harrison.
His career focused more on supporting roles throughout the 2010s but in 2022, he made the jump to TV, joining Helen Mirren in the Paramount+ western drama series 1923 for two seasons. It was critically acclaimed and a ratings smash.
That same year, he joined the cast of Apple TV's Shrinking, in which he played an aging therapist who is diagnosed with Parkinson's. Season three will premiere in 2026, and Harrison has been nominated for a Golden Globe and Critics' Choice Television Award for his work, as well as receiving his first ever Screen Actors Guild Award, and his first Emmy Award.
His humanitarian accomplishments include his work with Conservation International, where he has served on the board for decades, and he often lends his voice for public service messages promoting environmental involvement for EarthShare, an organization that support nonprofits, launch projects, and inspire action for a healthier planet.
In 2019 he gave a speech as part of his work with Conservation International on the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, urging politicians to listen to "angry young people".
"The most important thing we can do for them is to get the hell out of their way," he said.
He has also worked to protect Yosemite National Park's Hetch Hetchy Valley, and appeared in the documentary series Years of Living Dangerously, which reports on people affected by and seeking solutions to climate change.
Three new species of animals have been named after Harrison: the spider, Calponia harrisonfordi; an ant named Pheidole harrisonfordi; and a Peruvian snake species, Tachymenoides harrisonfordi