Harrison Ford doesn't have any plans to retire.

The 83-year-old star believes actors are fortunate in that there's no strict time limit on their working life.

Asked if he'll ever retire, Harrison told Variety: "No. That's one of the things I thought was attractive about the job of an actor, was that they need old people, too, to play old people's parts."

Harrison has worked with some of the biggest names in the movie industry - including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola - during the course of his career. And the Hollywood icon feels fortunate to have worked through the 70s and 80s, too.

He said: "You're talking about a very exciting time in the movie business. In the late '70s and through the '80s, there was this group of young filmmakers, all of them wildly independent, both in spirit and in mind, who wanted to make their own films their own way, and they all burst upon the scene at much the same time.

"I was very lucky to lump in with those guys because I was of a youthful age. But I never expected to be anything more than a character actor. I never wanted to be anything more than somebody that made a living as an actor."

Harrison played Han Solo in the Star Wars franchise, but he wasn't sure whether the original film would lead to a sequel.

The veteran movie star explained: "I didn't really know whether there was going to be another film when we started, and because I didn't know whether there would be another film -- and because I only had the script from the first one to consider -- I didn't sign the sequel deal, which turned out to be to all of our advantage."

Harrison also played the titular character in the Indiana Jones franchise, and the actor was always convinced that the first film would become a huge success.

Asked how he felt reprising the character for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Harrison explained: "I wanted to see him as an older man facing the consequences of the life that he had lived. But I couldn't imagine that we were going to end up doing five of them. I didn't expect success. In the movie business, you always go in wanting to be successful, but you don't always expect to be.

"I did expect the first film would be wildly successful. I read it very quickly, one time. I'd been asked by George Lucas to go and meet Steven Spielberg, who I didn't know, and he sent me a script to read. I thought it was great. And then I went to meet Steven, we spent about an hour together and suddenly I had a job."