Indiana Jones has survived giant boulders, the blood of Kali, swathes of rats and killer ants. As for Harrison Ford, the legendary actor who plays him, when FilmInk meets the 80-year-old, he has just narrowly escaped the attentions of a female journalist at the Cannes Film Festival press conference, where Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny has just been unveiled. She proclaimed how “still very hot” he was. “It was very dark in there!” quips Ford, who clearly hasn’t lost his sense of humour.
Age, it seems, is key to Dial of Destiny, with Ford returning to the role he first played 42 years ago in Steven Spielberg’s epic adventure Raiders of the Lost Ark.
So, what was important to him this time around? “To complete the kind of human story of a life,” he says. “Because we’ve spent forty years with this guy, it’s almost a lifetime. I want to see him face the challenge of age.”
With archaeologist Jones now living in New York in 1969, just as Neil Armstrong is about to take one giant leap for mankind, the archaeologist adventurer is facing the prospect of retirement from his teaching position.
Even in the late Sixties, Jones’ world of seeking fortune and glory seems like a thing of the past. “Rock’n’roll’s arrived, modernism has arrived, space travel has arrived, Real Politic has arrived,” says incoming director James Mangold. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Wars where we don’t understand what they’re about are going on. I don’t feel like Indy has given up wanting to learn. I think that’s in his DNA. But I think he’s in a place where there’s less avenues. And less encouragement, less of an audience for what he has to share.”
Taking over from Steven Spielberg, who helmed all four previous Indy outings, Mangold admits that directing Ford’s iconic character was an adventure almost as perilous as those undertaken by the character. “It was one of the reasons I jumped on to the movie. I saw all the liabilities,” he says.
A vastly experienced director, he’s been there before, directing Hugh Jackman in two X-Men-related movies, The Wolverine (2013) and Logan (2017). “I knew first-hand in the past, the kinds of challenges you have with franchises – with the level of pressure and expectation and almost religious and fervent belief from fans of one stripe or another, what something should or shouldn’t be.”
Mangold worked feverishly on the script, which also saw input from Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth (who together penned the screenplay for Mangold’s 2019 racing car drama Ford v Ferrari) and long-time Spielberg collaborator David Koepp (who wrote 2008’s last Indy outing, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). It’s a plot that sees Indy team up with his goddaughter Helena (British-born Fleabag star Pheobe Waller-Bridge), who is in search of Archimedes’ Dial, a device that can find splits in the space-time continuum.
Needless to say, she’s not the only one. Also in pursuit of this MacGuffin is a former Nazi by the name of Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), who has since helped the U.S. government win the Space Race. Voller is first introduced in the film’s 1944-set prologue, seen clashing with Indy on top of a speeding train. While Ford was digitally de-aged (quite convincingly) for the scene, Mikkelsen – who was 56 when he shot it – was given a rather more practical makeover. “They dyed my hair black. [I] just looked like an old woman!” he laughs.
Joining him in the chase for the Dial is American actor Boyd Holbrook, who plays Voller’s “lapdog” Klaber. “I think his choices aren’t the smartest,” says Holbrook. “Originally, the character was written as German. And I told Jim I didn’t want to play [him] doing a German accent. Why don’t we modernise this and make him an American guy? Nobody else wants him [except Voller]. So, he’s this loyal companion who’s eagerly trying to learn German and be a part of the club. He thinks he’s getting on the boat early!”
One of the film’s most chilling scenes comes as Voller addresses a Black waiter in New York, telling him that the Allies didn’t win the war, but that Hitler simply lost it. “It was a little nerve wracking,” admits Mikkelsen. “And we had a little talk before we did it, obviously, because it’s borderline… everything. To do a scene like that.” But the way Mikkelsen quietly fumes as he sees the waiter touching his papers was perfectly judged. Adds Holbrook: “It shows you how dark the heart can go.”
Holbrook, who previously worked with Mangold on Logan, is hardly a rookie when it comes to acting, but even he admits watching Mikkelsen and Ford tussling was awe-inspiring. He cites one scene with all three of them in a van. “I have one line that closes the scene. And I’m watching this masterclass of acting between these two actors. And then everything goes quiet. And everyone’s looking at me, the crew’s looking at me… oh I’m supposed to say something! It’s hypnotic. The only word I can come up with is surreal, seeing it happen. Not in a chair in my home, but up close and personal.”
For Mikkelsen, it was his first time working with Mangold. “Jim… he’s my cup of tea,” the Danish actor says. “I had a hunch that he was not afraid of taking on and stepping into these [Spielberg-sized] shoes. The one thing he wanted to make sure was that ‘I’m not just doing Indiana Jones. Why am I doing it? What’s the story? What do you want to say?’ And that was super important for him. I think that was the right attitude.”
Ford, typically, plays down his contribution. “I just want to get through the fucking day with some degree of self-respect left. And that usually occurs when there’s a connection with a very strong filmmaker.”
While Mangold’s career dates back to 1995 Sundance hit Heavy, this latest blockbuster was a true step up, being surrounded by so many legends, he says. “And I don’t mean just Harrison. I mean, Kathy [Kennedy, producer], and Steven [Spielberg] and John Williams, composing the score. And these aren’t just transactional in the sense that I show him the movie, he hands me the music, or I gave him the sides, he acts the scene, I say, ‘cut’. These are negotiations and explorations and intellectual pushing and pulling that we did for a year, just shooting. And you get close, you understand each other, you learn things.”
With a shoot that included a jaunt to Morocco (to film a fiendishly complex Tuk Tuk chase), Dial of Destiny comes packed with action – from the aforementioned train sequence to an underwater set-piece (complete with electric eels), filmed at Pinewood Studios, near London. “We could feel how big the film was because we usually don’t have this much time doing things,” says Holbrook. “We did the stuff in Morocco, then went back to the studio in London and did more. Every exterior was on location, but every interior was built. So, you could control that environment. It was just a huge jigsaw puzzle. But you definitely felt that this is going to be incredible.”
When the film premiered in Cannes, the audience gave it a five-minute standing ovation – a recognition, perhaps, not just for the film, but for Ford’s contribution to cinema, as Indy and other characters that he’s brought to life. He’s retiring Indy’s hat and whip now, but his parting wish is that Dial of Destiny draws folks back into cinemas. “What knits people together in two hours is a common human experience, an emotional experience in the dark… with good music preferably,” he smiles. “So, let’s get back into the theatre and then try and warm each other’s souls!”
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny opens in cinemas on June 28, 2023
