Harrison Ford: MSN Interview

When did you start seriously considering the new film?

 

A couple of years after the last one. There was an interview from 11 years ago with Barbara Walters on recently; she asked if I would consider playing Indy again. I said in a New York minute. Because it was both so satisfying for audiences, and that's the way I see my job, as a storyteller or assistant storyteller, and if people don't like it you have to listen. You gotta think a little bit about it. It's a service occupation. If they don't wanna listen, get someone else to do the talking, the storytelling. They were very successful films obviously, and great fun to make. And the majority of that fun was accrued by the fact that I was working with an incredible director. So there was no doubt in my mind that it would be worthy to do it again.

 

It’s a long time coming. How many scripts do you go through?

 

I saw about three. And some of the ideas in the first one survived to the second and there was a residue and some were amplified and some dropped. It was a process to come to this story. It was a process I was largely not involved in, because the way we work is George is the global authority on the story; George and Steven work together to get a script, and then I see it. And we had all three to agree on whether or not we wanted to do it in order to make it happen. It was a long process but we were all doing other things at the same time. Nobody was sitting at home waiting for another Indy script.

 

How was your first day on set?

 

I don't even remember what we did on the first day. I do remember they sent the costume over to my house in a case with my friend, Bernie Pollack, the new costumer, in case things had to be remade or refit. When I put it on, even at home, I felt the character. It's easy enough - you put on a jacket, and a hat and carry a whip, the bag and the whole thing... The shoes were worn in. I felt the character come back immediately. But I don't remember what first day was. I guess the character was there. Because we got the work the first day, like we did every day of the shoot, it was wonderful, wonderful experience. We shot 80 days and I had one day off, but every day was a pure joy to go to work.

 

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What do you love about Indy?

 

It's not so much about loving Indy as it is about loving working with Steven and George and making that kind of film and having the opportunity to play a character that has this kind of variety and this kind of experience and the potential in him for all of the aspects that we bring to life through that character; his relationships with his family as in Sean; the different sides of his nature. But the guy, you know, each day of shooting had exciting ideas to bring to life. Exciting for an actor and hopefully for the audience. So it was a great pleasure to go to work. And you know we had the best actors, the best catering, the best cinematographer... everything was like a banquet. A moviemaking banquet.

 

How do you see the character fitting into today's world?

 

I think people have been watching the three films with their families for the intervening 17, 18 years. It’s been released in new forms and enjoyed great success in each of the releases. I think there's an opportunity here to bring a fresh look at the character in a new film and to bring people who have been exposed to him before or haven't been exposed to him before because they weren't born 17 years ago, or 27 years ago, to the experience to this kind of film, this character. I think there's a huge audience out there for it. According to 'surveys', it’s the most anticipated movie of the year. I feel like a guy who robbed a bank, got away from the cops but just hasn't had a chance to see how much he got away with! So I know it's going to be successful, no doubt about it. So it's just a question of how successful, which is not really that interesting. I do anticipate that it won't have been a waste of money to make this movie.

 

Can we hope for an Indiana Jones 5?

 

I don't 'hope'. I would make myself available, but nobody is anticipating that at this point.

 

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