Harrison Ford Health Scare Derails Oscars Plans Right Before Ceremony
Jason Pham
As if Oscars night wasn’t crazy enough, Harrison Ford has shingles. Ford—who was set to present at the 97th Academy Awards on Sunday, March 2—was diagnosed with shingles two days before the Oscars, which led him to cancel his appearance last-minute.
According to the Mayo Clinic, shingles is non-life threatening incurable viral infection that causes a “painful rash” which looks like a “a single stripe of blisters that wraps around the left side or the right side of your torso.”
It’s unclear who will replace Ford as a presenter at the Oscars, however, the celebrities set to present at the award show include Halle Berry, Penélope Cruz, Elle Fanning, Whoopi Goldberg, Scarlett Johansson, John Lithgow, Amy Poehler, June Squibb, Bowen Yang, Emma Stone, Cillian Murphy, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Robert Downey Jr., Dave Bautista, Gal Gadot, Andrew Garfield, Samuel L. Jackson, Margaret Qualley, Alba Rohrwacher, Zoe Saldaña, Rachel Zegler, Miles Teller, and Miley Cyrus. Conan O’Brien will serve as this year’s host.
Ford has been nominated for one Academy Award in 1986 in the Best Actor category for his performance in the movie Witness. The award went to William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider Woman.
Ford can currently be seen in Marvel Studios’ fourth Captain America movie, Captain America: Brave New World, in which he plays Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, also known as Red Hulk, a newly elected president of the United States who wants to work with Captain America. Ford replaced actor William Hurt, who played the character in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk and 2021’s Black Widow. Hurt died in 2022. He was 71 years old.
“We knew each other enough to nod and say hello, but I didn’t know the man very well,” Ford told reporters at Captain America: Brave New World‘s Los Angeles premiere when asked about what it was like to replace Hurt, according to People. “But I knew his work, and his work is fantastic. To have the opportunity to step into the shoes of a character that he helped to create was not a barrier to me. It seemed like a wonderful opportunity when I read the script, and that’s how I felt about that.”
As for what it was like to join Marvel, Ford, who has starred in blockbuster franchises like Indiana Jones and Star Wars, told Variety in 2023 about why he wanted to become a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “What did it take? It took not caring. It took being an idiot for money, which I’ve done before,” he said. “I don’t mean to disparage it. I’m just saying you have to do certain things that normally your mother would not want you to do — or your acting coach, if you had one. But it’s fun, and I enjoyed it. I had a great time.”
