Harrison Ford First Saw Indiana Jones’ Costume and Was Baffled: ‘What Am I Going to Do With a F—ing Whip? I’m Going to Whip People?’
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In a new video interview with GQ magazine, Harrison Ford revealed that he pushed back against Indiana Jones’ iconic costume when he first saw the plans for his character during the development of Steven Spielberg’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981). The costume included a leather jacket, a bullwhip and a pinch-front fedora that Ford stapled to his head during production so that it would not fly off during action scenes. Ford told GQ he still has the staple scars.
“It was presented to me as an aspect of character in the first film,” Ford said about Indiana Jones’ costume. “My questions about it were many. Why am I wearing a leather jacket in the jungle? Isn’t it hot here? Why am I carrying a whip? What am I going to do with a fucking whip? I’m going to whip people?”
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The braintrust behind Indiana Jones explained to Ford that the costume, particularly the character’s hat, was “an evocation of a time” and “a reflection of movies past.” Ford had no arguments against that and wore every piece of clothing asked of him. The rest is movie history.
Ford recently reprised Indiana Jones for a fifth and final time in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” which has been struggling at the box office. The actor said throughout his press tour that showing Indiana’s age was of the upmost importance during the film.
“I wanted an ambitious movie to be the last one,” Ford previously told Esquire magazine about reprising Indiana Jones. “And I don’t mean that we didn’t make ambitious movies before — they were ambitious in many different ways. But not necessarily as ambitious with the character as I wanted the last one to be.”
One of the action set pieces in “Dial of Destiny” finds Indiana Jones riding a horse through the streets of New York City during the 1969 ticker-tape parade to celebrate the moon landing. As he was finishing up filming the scene, Ford felt the hands of three stunt workers spotting him from the ground as he was on horseback.
“I thought, ‘What the fuck?’ Like I was being attacked by gropers. I look down and there’s three stunt guys there making sure I didn’t fall off the stirrup,” Ford recalled. “They said, ‘Oh, we were just afraid because we thought, you know, and bah bah bah bah.’ And I said, ‘Leave me the fuck alone…Leave me alone, I’m an old man getting off a horse and I want it to look like that!”’
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is now playing in theaters nationwide from Disney. Watch Ford’s video interview with GQ magazine below.
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