Harrison Ford may be getting older, but he isn’t slowing down one bit. In fact, he is doing rather the opposite as he takes on project after project, from the hit series 1923 to joining the MCU and donning the hat and whip one last time in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The 80-year-old actor recently looked back over his time as the action-loving archeologist and how it feels to be in his final Indiana Jones film.
The Indiana Jones franchise has been a classic in cinematic history, with Ford taking on the role over 40 years ago when he was aged just 38 years old. The last film, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull didn’t go down as smoothly as the original trilogy but that hasn’t stopped them from making a fifth and final film. As reported in Deadline, one of Ford’s main reasons for coming back to the character is that he wanted to show his character “as an older man lost and dealing with the loss of youth.”
The actor spoke about this at a recent press event, how he wanted to showcase the character dealing with aging. The first 20 minutes of the film see a de-aged Ford set in the 1940s, on his usual mission, and then “there is a hard cut from 1944 to 1969” showing us a version of Indiana Jones that is not the one we grew up with. Ford specifically wanted to show an Indy who is no longer the action stud he used to be, stating “We weren’t running away from the age of the character, that was a part of the story, the whole story is about time.”
This theme of time is shown throughout, from the film’s “MacGuffin” as Ford puts it, the dial is “about time, the movie is about time, as we are able to go to the past, and the character is about time. Time is running out,” he tells us. For Ford the story is also about atonement, “that’s the emotional power of the film.”So much of this film was set up to reflect just how different this version of Indy is, including those famed action shots, “We wanted those action sequences to reflect the age of the character.”
Though Ford may be feeling his age, and sure he isn’t the same as he was 40 years ago, that would be a medical marvel, he still manages to pull off some impressive stunts that would cripple most 80-year-olds. Still, the act of aging and coming to terms with it is a relatable one for many, especially those who were around when these films first came out back in the 80s.
You can see Ford in his final Indiana Jones film arriving in theatres on June, 30.