Harrison Ford, the curmudgeonly granddad of Hollywood, is at it again. Just days from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny entering cinemas, finally continuing the adventures of the immortal archaeologist 15 years later, the Star Wars icon has admitted that he wasn’t the one who wanted to make another Indiana Jones movie in the first place. Even if he eventually came around to the idea.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Ford was reminded that character creators Steven Spielberg and George Lucas immediately had a desire to do Indiana Jones 5 after 2008’s Kingdom of the Crystal Skull fell far short of expectations. When asked if he recalled if he shared their enthusiasm for more, in a brilliantly self-aware moment, the 80-year-old actor admitted that he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have done.
“No, I don’t think so. It doesn’t sound much like me. It would’ve taken a while. I would’ve had to do a few other things.”
With the following decade seeing him revisit other iconic characters like Han Solo in the Star Wars sequel trilogy and Rick Deckard in Blade Runner 2049, not to mention appearances in The Expendables franchise, Ford was kept plenty busy so it was a few years before he grew nostalgic for Indy. “It took me a while to miss him,” the star said.
Once he did start to miss him, Ford was ultimately tempted to make Indy 5 as he saw that “there was room for one more story.” He continued:
“And that story was the one that dealt with age, time, and relationships in his family — knitting the whole thing together just a little bit more, and feeling a kind of roundness in all of the different stories we’ve told. I’m more comfortable leaving him at this place than he was at the end of Crystal Skull.”
With The Dial of Destiny being pitched as the definitive ending of the Indiana Jones saga, presumably Ford won’t be cajoled into making any more of these films after this. But then we thought The Last Crusade was the final Indy adventure for many years, so who knows, really?
Despite what we’ve been promised, it’s impossible to rule out the option that Hollywood could recast Indy at some point down the line. But, whatever happens to the character, there will only be one Harrison Ford.
