Harrison Ford, 82, has supported environmental and humanitarian efforts for decades. He flew medical supplies to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and has served on the board of Conservation International for more than 30 years. Photo by Gage Skidmore

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Harrison Ford received an award for his philanthropy in June from the global surgery and training nonprofit Operation Smile.

But the star of the Indiana Jones and Star Wars film franchises, as well as this year’s Captain America: Brave New World, says all the attention should go to the award’s namesake: Ford’s friend, the late humanitarian and noted plastic surgeon Dr. Randy Sherman.

Like Ford, Sherman, who was director of the Cedars-Sinai Division of Plastic Surgery in Los Angeles and a specialist in reconstructive surgery who developed numerous training programs, was an avid pilot.

The two met when they shared the same home airport. Sherman told Ford of his volunteer work with Operation Smile, providing cleft palate surgery to children in countries where access to such services is limited, and Angel Flight West, which provides free medical transportation to patients.

“The things that he contributed to my life and to my family’s lives are beyond anybody’s wildest imagination,” Ford said of Sherman, who died in 2023 when his plane experienced engine failure and crashed in New Mexico. “He was a very important person to me and…to all of the people that he’s associated with in the medical community. All of them recognize his selfless service.”

The Associated Press recently spoke with Ford about receiving the Dr. Randy Sherman Visionary Award from Operation Smile and how he hopes it will inspire others to give what they can. The interview was edited for clarity and length.

Q: How did you get to know Dr. Sherman?

A: When the earthquake in Haiti struck [in 2010], I reached out to Randy and asked if he thought there was anything that we could do with an airplane that I had, which was particularly suited to the kind of work that’s done in these circumstances. We flew my Cessna Caravan to Miami and picked up supplies and medical professionals — doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists — and flew to Port-au-Prince.

We flew missions to bring supplies and medical personnel to a community called Hinche, in the highlands of Haiti, a town that had no airport but did have a field that we were able to land the aircraft in. We were there for about a week, going back and forth each day to Hinche to bring in supplies.

Q: What made you want to be a part of that — a dangerous mission under tough circumstances?

A: Well, I didn’t consider it to be dangerous. I considered it to be an opportunity to be able to use something that I had that was needed.

We knew there was a hospital in Hinche that was staffed by two Cuban doctors, and they had no supplies, no anesthetics. And because of the delay in assets reaching them, there were a lot of people suffering amputations and other very significant medical issues.

Q: You don’t talk about your philanthropy much, especially what you do to fight climate change. Do you feel that it should get more attention?

A: I think it gets attention when it needs to be recognized — not my work, but the issues I’m talking about.

I’ve been working in conservation for 35 years with an organization called Conservation International. We work internationally, as the name suggests. The only work we do here in the United States is fundraising. And we’re under enormous threat now with the rise of nationalism and isolationism.

Q: Does that make your work even more pressing? Especially with the cuts to USAID that previously funded environmental work?

A: Of course. Yes. In the last 10 years, we have had a real, substantial contribution from USAID addressing and mitigating issues that have suddenly disappeared from our moral flowchart. It’s a travesty. It’s a tragedy.

Q: Will Conservation International do something differently this year to make up for those cuts?

A: Unfortunately, we will not be able to do that because we don’t have extra funds to distribute. We don’t have the structures of a scientific community that have been established and nurtured and cultured over the years. They’ve been dissolved. We can’t do it.

Q: Do you hope the Operation Smile award and the attention that comes with it will convince some people to donate more?

A: I hope so. I hope it motivates some people to recognize they will have to create new mechanisms of funding and support.

We’re in such a fragile point of inflection here… There will be moments when all of us will be called upon to think about these things again and to make our individual efforts to address the imbalance of the situation that now exists. There are many people upset with this stuff. But will we coalesce around these things and become a political constituency, a moral army? —AP