Harrison Ford Revisits That Time He Accidentally Punched Ryan Gosling In The Face

It’s been nearly a decade since Blade Runner 2049 hit theaters, but Harrison Ford still hasn’t lived down that punch and neither has Ryan Gosling’s face.

During a recent chat with Variety, 83-year-old Harrison looked back on the accidental jab he landed on Ryan, now 44, while filming their intense fight scene for the 2017 sequel to Ford’s original 1982 Blade Runner.

“[We were rehearsing a fight] and we got a little too close and I hit him,” Harrison said. “I apologized right away. What more could I do? Can’t take back a punch. Just take it.”

Ryan took the hit like a champ and with a good sense of humor. Back in 2016, before the film was released, he called the experience a “rite of passage.” According to Ryan, right after the punch, director Denis Villeneuve told him, “Look at it this way — you just got hit by Indiana Jones!”

But it didn’t stop there. As Ryan recalled, when ice was brought in to help with the swelling, Harrison skipped the whole sympathy act, pushed Ryan aside, and dunked his own fist in the bucket instead.

Later, Harrison showed up with a bottle of scotch and a glass in his pocket. But in classic Harrison Ford style, he poured Ryan one glass, handed it to him, and walked away with the rest of the bottle. As Ryan recounted: “He came by afterward with this bottle of scotch, and I thought, ‘Oh, I knew this was coming.’ And he pulled out a glass from his pocket, poured me a glass, and walked away with the rest of the bottle.”

“So I guess he felt like he didn’t connect enough to earn a whole bottle,” Ryan joked.

The pair have laughed about it publicly before, especially during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show. “You weren’t meant to punch him,” the host teased. “Oh, I misread the script,” Harrison deadpanned. “One out of a hundred times, I hit him.”

Ryan jumped in with his signature dry humor: “Right, right. I should be lucky I didn’t get hit more, is the theme of this narrative.”

Still, Ryan made sure to point out that a Harrison Ford punch isn’t your everyday kind of punch. According to him, it is “a different animal altogether.” 

Looking back, Harrison admits he actually enjoyed making Blade Runner 2049 more than the original. “It wasn’t raining and it wasn’t night all the time,” he laughed, poking fun at the notoriously dark and wet shoot for Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic.