Harrison Ford explains the secret to playing Indiana Jones. Ford has been playing Indiana Jones for over four decades, first playing the adventure hero in 1981 in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The character has grown to be one of the most iconic adventure heroes in cinema, with Ford embarking on Indiana Jones’ final adventure in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
In an exclusive interview with Screen Rant for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Ford revealed the secret to playing Indiana Jones. He explained that showing the audience the effort it takes to overcome challenges, both mental and physical, is integral to understanding the character. While this is at the heart of the original Indiana Jones trilogy, it is even more clear in the character’s swan song, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Check out Ford’s full quote and interview below:
Harrison Ford: To make the audience understand that the physical challenges, the emotional challenges, the overcoming of fear, the overcoming of just how you can believe the circumstances you’ve gotten yourself in, and how you might work your way out of them is a big part of the story.
How Harrison Ford’s Portrayal Of Indiana Jones Keeps Drawing In Fans
Indiana Jones is not an infallible hero; the franchise has always leaned into his weaknesses, including his fear of snakes, troubled relationships, and physical injury. He is an archeologist first, which means some of his greatest strengths are his deep historical knowledge and his intelligence, but he constantly gets himself into trouble while searching for artifacts, and though he’ll inevitably win the fight, he’ll take a few hits first. This makes him more relatable, and it makes his victories feel more earned.
In the fourth and fifth movies, Indiana Jones has a new struggle: his age. He isn’t the spry young hero who can take a few punches and keep fighting as if nothing happened. By leaning into his age and showing how he still manages to use his smarts and tenacity to succeed, Indiana Jones becomes an even greater hero. It’s not only the physical toll that his age accentuates, but also how the world that he thrived in has changed and evolved around him.
Indiana Jones’ quest in the original trilogy is simple: retrieve the artifact to protect humanity and beat the bad guys. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny takes a page out of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade’s books, with Nazis as the main antagonist. Although the Nazis are still clearly the bad guys, the rest of the world has become much more complicated. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny exemplifies the new complexities of the world by taking inspiration from the real Operation Paper Clip, in which Nazis were recruited by the United States for NASA. Indiana Jones is an iconic hero because the movies lean into his vulnerabilities, and through that, the audience connects with him as he fights to overcome the challenges he faces, both external and internal.
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This story originally appeared on Screenrant
