A ROLE THAT RESONATES DEEPLY — HARRISON FORD REFLECTS ON SHRINKING AND THE FRIENDSHIP THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING.

Harrison Ford is a pop culture icon, thanks to Indiana Jones and Han Solo. But the 83-year-old actor appreciates for how his public perception has shifted after playing a therapist coping with Parkinson’s disease on Apple TV’s Shrinking.

“I’m very grateful to you for introducing that complication to the character,” Ford told co-creator Bill Lawrence at a Shrinking panel on Sunday. “Because that makes the difference between what I’ve done my whole career and the change now that doing this work means in people’s sense of who I am. And I am glad to come to the point where this is who I am, and that was who I was.”

In the show’s recently-concluded third season, Ford’s character, Dr. Paul Rhoades, comes to grips with his new reality and moving on to the next phase of his life. He says the storyline has impacted his persona and daily interactions.

Ford added, “This is nurturing for me as an actor. And I feel the effect; it’s changed the way people relate to me on the street. And that feels like the roundness of a life.”

Ford shared that he’s also grateful for Michael J. Fox, who guest-starred in season 3 as Paul’s new friend Gerry, a fellow Parkinson’s patient. Fox previously starred in Lawrence’s ’90s sitcom Spin City, before departing the series to deal with the increasing symptoms from his real-life Parkinson’s diagnosis.

“He is an incredibly thoughtful, compassionate, wise, gentle person, with great power,” Ford said of Fox. “He’s been very generous in extending friendship to me. I really didn’t know him, so I was a little nervous about meeting him. But he was so generous and kind to me that it gave me a degree of confidence, which is all you have to work with.”

Despite a finale that had viewers panicked about Ford’s Shrinking future, Lawrence insists that the actor will be back for a season 4, which will feature a time jump.