Zach Braff, the Scrubs star turned director, gave fans a peek into a charming moment with Harrison Ford that’s as human as it gets for a Hollywood legend. While speaking at the ATX TV Festival in Austin on June 1, 2025, alongside his longtime pal and Shrinking co-creator Bill Lawrence, Braff recounted a story about riding around the Warner Bros. lot with Ford in a golf cart. As they cruised, Braff noticed Ford subtly turning his head whenever tourist trams passed by. Curious, he asked if Ford ever waves to the fans gawking from the trams. Ford’s reply? “No, no. I look away. But I do feel bad about it!” The anecdote, shared with Entertainment Weekly, paints a picture of Ford as both elusive and surprisingly relatable, even as a megastar.
Braff, who’s directed Ford in Apple TV+’s Shrinking, described the surreal thrill of hopping into a golf cart with the man who played Han Solo and Indiana Jones. “I’m like, ‘My god, I’m in a f---ing golf cart with Harrison Ford,’” Braff told the festival crowd, capturing his starstruck vibe. The moment came early in their collaboration on Shrinking, a comedy series about a grieving therapist (Jason Segel) who shakes up his practice with unorthodox methods. Ford plays Paul, a gruff but lovable mentor, and Braff has directed multiple episodes, including two pivotal ones in Season 2, which premiered October 16, 2024.
Ford’s habit of dodging the trams stems from his well-known preference for privacy. At 82, the Star Wars icon is no stranger to fame, but he’s not one to bask in it. Braff’s story highlights Ford’s self-awareness—he knows fans are excited to spot him, and his quiet guilt about looking away adds a layer of humility to his larger-than-life persona. The Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, where Shrinking films, is a hotspot for studio tours, with trams full of tourists hoping to glimpse stars. Ford’s low-key avoidance tactic, paired with his admission that he feels bad, struck a chord with fans, who found it both funny and endearing.
The ATX panel, dubbed “Bad Advice, Great TV,” also featured Lawrence praising Braff’s ability to win over Ford, who’s famously “cantankerous,” as Lawrence put it with a laugh. “Watching Zach kind of win over Harrison has been a recent highlight for me,” he said, noting Ford’s guarded nature with new collaborators. Braff, no stranger to directing heavyweights like Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine, shared that even legends like Ford want a confident director. “They don’t want someone showing up intimidated,” Braff told Collider in 2024. “Everybody, no matter who you are, wants a leader with a vision.” His approach clearly clicked with Ford, and their golf-cart chats even led to bonding over a shared love of aviation, as Braff, a licensed pilot, told Gold Derby.
Fans are eating up the story, with many charmed by Ford’s mix of grumpiness and heart. The image of him steering a golf cart while slyly avoiding tourists feels like a scene straight out of Shrinking’s heartfelt comedy. Braff’s work on the show, including directing the hilarious Season 2 episode where Ford’s character delivers the line, “You want me to pull my pants down and make my ass clap?” (as teased by co-star Christa Miller to TV Insider), shows his knack for blending humor with real emotion. That episode, one of Braff’s contributions, had the cast in stitches, with Miller saying, “None of us could stop laughing.”
As Shrinking continues to win over audiences—Season 2 is streaming on Apple TV+ with new episodes weekly through December 25, 2025—Braff’s anecdote adds another layer of charm to Ford’s legend. It’s a reminder that even icons feel a pang of guilt when they dodge the spotlight, making them all the more relatable. Whether he’s outrunning tourist trams or stealing scenes in Shrinking, Ford’s still got that Han Solo swagger, with a side of self-aware softness that keeps fans hooked.