Harrison Ford on youth, age and confronting the Dial of Destiny in final spin as Indiana Jones
The superstar, 80, hardly needs ‘de-ageing’ technology as he returns for a final spin as Indiana Jones.
Harrison Ford is a mix of a superstar and super-nice guy. His conviviality and humility are infectious. Both were on show at the Cannes film festival last month, where he attended the world premiere of the fifth – and final – film in the Indiana Jones series. He even shed a tear as he bid farewell to one of his most famous and beloved on-screen characters, first introduced in 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny comes with huge expectations after 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which featured Cate Blanchett, divided audiences.
James Mangold has taken over directing duties from Steven Spielberg, who remains involved as executive producer, as does George Lucas. All evidence so far, ahead of the film’s official release this month, is that it’s set to be a blockbuster.
Speaking at Cannes, Ford says he simply wanted to see a good movie.
“I wanted to see a completion of the five films, I wanted to round out the story,” he says. “I wanted to see this man who depends so much on his vigour – the vigour of youth – and I wanted to see the weight of life on him. I wanted him to have a relationship that was not a kind of a flirty movie relationship.”
Never mind the weight of life. At 80, Ford is incredibly well preserved, his bright eyes blazing. In Dial of Destiny, digital de-ageing techniques are used in some scenes to give him the appearance of a much younger man, as Indy would have been in the 1940s when doing battle with Nazis. But we also see Ford as the mature man in his late 70s, when Indy bares his chest in the ensuing scene.
At the Cannes press conference, to lift the mood I tell Ford that he still looks hot and that audiences were stunned when he takes his shirt off. “I have been blessed with this body,” Ford responds, showing his sense of humour as he splays his arms around his torso. “Thanks for noticing.”
The critics and filmmakers burst into laughter, and his comment went viral.
Of the de-aged Indy in the film he says: “That’s what I looked like 35 years ago because Lucasfilm has every frame of film that we’ve made together over all of these years and the scientific mining of this library was put to good use. But it’s just a trip unless it’s supported by story.”
Indy’s final adventure is set in 1969. Dr Jones is preparing to retire after teaching for more than a decade at New York’s Hunter College when he receives a surprise visit from his estranged goddaughter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge). She is seeking a rare artefact, the famous Archimedes Dial or Antikythera, half of which her father Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) had entrusted to Indy. In its full form the dial supposedly holds the power to locate fissures in time and potentially enable time travel.
Unbeknown to Indy, Helena is a con artist and she steals the half-dial to sell it to the highest bidder.
Indy’s old enemy, former Nazi Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), who is now working as a physicist in the US space program, is after the dial too. He has far more nefarious plans to change the course of history.
To prevent the dial ending up in the wrong hands, Indy dons his fedora and leather jacket and springs into action for a globe-hopping adventure that takes him from New York to Tangier, Greece and Sicily.
Mangold, who knows his way around an action movie, having honed his skills on The Wolverine and Logan, also co-wrote the screenplay.
“The main reason I jumped in was this kind of artistic invitation I felt from Harrison,” he says. Ford “may be a star and a legend, but he’s above all an actor who is always looking closely at what he’s going to play … All the characters in the movie are wrestling with regrets from their past and also what’s ahead of them.”
Waller-Bridge, Mangold says, is an unusual talent who was perfect for the role of Helena.
“She’s so smart, so improvisational, so very brilliant at comedy and dramatic acting, so beautiful, but also so able to be daft or kind of crazed or goofy, so there are so many contradictions in her,” he says. “That is what I think both Harrison and I responded to, because in a way she’s like a mirror of him. You know Harrison is also a series of contradictions, incredibly brave, yet kind of a baby at times.”
Really? “Well, he’s scared of snakes and he’s complaining about being wet or having bruises. He’s not, you know, The Rock. He’s less of a Greek hero and more of a kind of a real hero, bruises and contradictions and all.”
Did Hugh Jackman complain on the Wolverine movies? “Hugh Jackman complain? I can’t even associate the two words together! He was just about the most enjoyable and pleasant (colleague) on a movie you could ever have, even when the role is physically gruelling as Wolverine obviously is.”
Mangold, who is preparing a movie about young Bob Dylan starring Timothee Chalamet, as well as Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi, says making a big-budget movie is mostly the same as making a smaller movie.
“It’s just as hard,” he says. “This movie was challenging because we were filming during a worldwide pandemic and we were making a globetrotting film on a large scale with a large crew. So someone would get sick and we’d have to move on to shoot something else.”
At one point Ford was injured. “He was throwing a punch in a rehearsal and ripped a tendon and we kept shooting for another two weeks, scenes that we didn’t need him for. And then we went down for four weeks and then he was back. The only upside is that we all got a moment to breathe and learn from the movie we were making. But, of course, we missed him and couldn’t wait to get him back.”
Mikkelsen also knows his way around a blockbuster, having appeared in Fantastic Beasts, Doctor Strange, Star Wars Rogue One and the Bond film Casino Royale where he played the villain Le Chiffre. Playing a baddie, he says, is all about having a good script.
“It depends on the writer giving them a little colour so they’re not one-dimensional and letting them have a plan that doesn’t sound completely crazy to the audience.”
Like Ford, he was de-aged for the scenes set in the ’40s.
“It’s a little weird but it’s not bad,” the 57-year-old Dane says of his appearance. “I know I’m older. When I look in the mirror I see a 16-year-old kid every day anyway. I’m strange that way.”
He hadn’t met Ford before making this film. “Harrison’s very human, he’s not dissimilar to Indiana Jones in the sense that you want to be with him,” he says.
“He’s fun to be with. He’s a nice guy. He’s a fantastic actor. And he makes sure everybody on set is having a good time and makes the scene work. So he is what you want an actor to be, especially of that calibre. Some people of that calibre are out the door the second the bell rings, but he’s there, he’s working harder than anyone else.”
And, of course, he’s physically fit. “He’s annoyingly fit in the sense of like, ‘Come on Harrison, chill down!’ He’s got a lot of energy. The first time we had a night shoot we wrapped at five in the morning and we were all completely wasted and wanted to go to bed. But Harrison picked up his bicycle and went riding for 50km.”
Ford has quite the record as an actor: Han Solo in Star Wars, Deckard in Blade Runner, Jack Ryan in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, and his two films with Peter Weir, The Mosquito Coast and Witness, for which he received his sole best actor Oscar nomination.
His films have earned $US9.3bn ($13.7bn) worldwide and in Cannes he received an honorary Palme d’Or for his stellar career.
“It was indescribable,” he says of the Cannes honour. “It’s extraordinary to see a kind of relic, your life, as it passes by. But the warmth of this place, the sense of community, the welcome, is unimaginable. It makes me feel good.”
Even if Indiana Jones is now a thing of the past, Ford says he still loves to work, mentioning his comedy series Shrinking for Apple TV+, and Paramount+ series 1923, opposite Helen Mirren.
“I love Shrinking, I love doing comedy and I’m going to do another season,” he says of the show where he plays a psychiatrist and Jason Segel’s boss. “I’m also lucky that 1923 has been picked up again so I get to do another season on that.”
Does he have any regrets about projects that might have been?
“No, if it happens, it happens,” he says. “And if it doesn’t there’s a reason for it somewhere.”
Ford is happy where he’s at. He will be 81 next month and is still going strong. He’s not one to wish he was decades younger, having seen the de-ageing tricks used on him in Dial of Destiny.
“I think it was used very skilfully and assiduously, so I’m very happy with it,” he says. “But I don’t look back and say, ‘I wish I was that guy again’, because I don’t. I’m real happy with age. I love being older. It was great to be young, but shitfire, I could be dead and I’m still working. So go figure.”
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny opens in cinemas on June 28.
