Ford waxes chest to help environment

NEW YORK: Harrison Ford pulled a Steve Carell for a public service announcement: He gets his chest waxed.

The 65-year-old star winces in apparent pain as a strip of hair is yanked from his chest in the announcement for Conservation International to raise awareness about the effect of deforestation on global warming.

The actor, who doesn’t typically appear in such TV spots, sits on the board of directors of the Washington-based environmental organisation. Conservation International CEO Peter Seligmann said Ford was game to do the 30-second spot, and approved of the waxing concept.

“I didn’t have to talk him into anything,” Seligmann said at a news conference on May 20 in Manhattan. “I was there when he filmed it. It really hurt. There’s nothing about the expression on his face that was fake.” The classic scene from 2005’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin — in which Carell screams out “Kelly Clarkson!” during his chest hair removal — was intentionally hilarious. Ford’s message, however, is serious, “Every bit of rain forest that gets ripped out over there, really hurts us over here.” Ford’s latest movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, co-starring Shia LaBeouf and Karen Allen, opens on May 22.