J.J. Abrams Broke His Back Making ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ (Literally)
Harrison Ford might be a superhero.
This, according to Star Wars: The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams, who was on set for Ford’s unfortunate accident last year, when a hydraulic door broke his leg. (As Abrams’ describes it in the clip above, his ankle was at a, gulp, 90-degree angle to the rest of his body. Ew.) Thankfully, Ford was okay. Then he later got into a plane crash and was mostly okay after that too. Because, again, Harrison Ford is a superhero.
That isn’t the crazy part of the story. The crazy part of the story, which Abrams told to Jon Stewart on The Daily Show last night, is that in the chaos after the Millennium Falcon fell on Harrison Ford, the crew was trying to lift it off of him and J.J. Abrams actually broke his back. As in, he pulled so hard on this door thing, that it actually cracked something in his spine. Yeouch.
Abrams is fine now too, though he had to wear a brace around the Force Awakens set for a while (he compared it to Spanx), and was seemingly injured a lot longer than Ford was, even though he’s almost twice Abrams’ age and was the one who had the door fall on him. No wonder that dude was able to kick those terrorists off his plane, and also find the Ark of the Covenant. Harrison Ford is legit.
Also: J.J. Abrams’ Woody Allen impression is surprisingly good. I’d like to see more of that, please.