Steven Spielberg Was Amazed Harrison Ford's Stunt Team Survived Raiders Of The Lost Ark
Indiana Jones will soon return in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," another globe-trotting entry in the Indy saga that everyone's not really sure about because of a certain Crystal Skull of Akator. Still, franchise star Harrison Ford isn't worried, and has no hard feelings about "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." In fact, he's having a great time of late, forging a new prestige TV career by starring in the Apple TV+ series "Shrinking" alongside Paramount's popular "1923."
Some 40 odd years after Indiana Jones' 1981 debut, 80-year-old Ford can be found weathering blizzards on horseback and spending 10-hour days in the bitter Montana climate for his Paramount show. As Jacob Dutton, the Hollywood vet has shown a startling willingness to take on the physical demands of playing a rancher spending his twilight years protecting his family. But then, he's always preferred to perform as much of the on-screen action as he can. Since 1977's "Star Wars," Ford has proven himself as worthy an action star as anyone else. So much so, one of his Indiana Jones stunt doubles, Vic Armstrong, told Newsweek, "If he wasn't such a great actor, he would have made a really great stuntman."
Before "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" debuted and redefined the action adventure genre for a new generation, Ford was eager to put his enthusiasm for stunt work to good use. But as filming on Steven Spielberg's now classic adventure epic unfolded, it became increasingly clear that the movie's set pieces often involved significant risk — to the extent that Ford simply wasn't allowed to perform some of the stunts himself. And as far as Spielberg sees it, the performers that did take on the most dangerous stunts were lucky to make it out of the production alive.
Ford did all the stunts that didn't risk death
"Raiders Of The Lost Ark" started life as a series of elaborate set piece ideas in the mind of George Lucas. Those ideas were fleshed out once Steven Spielberg came onboard and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan had filled in the gaps with narrative during a slapdash writing process. However, actually committing that ambitious script to screen required some ambitious stunts. From the legendary boulder chase scene during the climax of the Peruvian temple sequence, to the tense truck chase in the Tunisian desert, "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" was a masterclass in doing action right.
Harrison Ford, who was given an unusual amount of creative control, was characteristically keen to get involved in as much of the film's action as possible. As his stunt double Vic Armstrong told Empire in 2021, "Harrison is Indiana Jones. He wanted to do all his stunts." And while the actor did as much as he could, ultimately the film's stunts were so dangerous there was a real risk of death, which prompted stunt gaffer J.R. Randall to step in and hold Ford back.
As Spielberg recalled in Paul Honeyford's biography of Ford:
"There are four or five very risky scenes that Terry Leonard, J.R. Randall, and Vic Armstrong did for him. J.R. Randall was our stunt gaffer, and he wouldn't let Harrison do any stunts that were potentially fatal. But Harrison did most everything else. Anything that simply promised serious injury or total disability, Harrison did; anything that promised death through fatal miscalculation, Terry, Vic, and J.R. did."
Aside from being impressed by Ford's willingness to perform his own stunts, the director was relieved that everyone was still breathing once filming was done: "That's the most amazing thing about the 'Raiders' saga — everybody survived."
'I was an idiot for letting him try it'
These days, Harrison Ford doesn't have to prove his worth, nor his physical ability. He's racked up more than $6 billion in box office receipts as a lead actor alone while establishing a reputation as not just a talented artist but a capable stunt performer in his own right. Still, that hasn't stopped him from getting stuck in on his latest projects. Even as an octogenarian, the guy won't let up. Director of multiple "1923" episodes, Ben Richardson, told the New York Times about Ford's dedication, saying, "He's Harrison Ford. He could be doing anything. I'm sure there are people who would prefer to have a double standing in. He did not."
So it was on "Raiders Of The Lost Ark," where Ford even performed the boulder chase scene himself. The 12-foot boulder, though comprised of fiberglass, wood, and plaster, still weighed 300 pounds. As Steven Spielberg explained, it "could still have done bodily harm to anyone falling beneath it." He added:
"There were five shots of the rock from five different angles — each one done separately, each one done twice — so Harrison had to race the rock ten times. He won ten times — and beat the odds. He was lucky — and I was an idiot for letting him try it."
Ford almost did suffer serious injury when the wheel of the film's flying wing ran over his right leg, requiring 40 crew members to rock the plane off their leading man. He escaped that episode unscathed, before promptly crashing the biplane used to escape the Peruvian temple sequence — once again, Ford was fine. But there were some stunts that were potentially even more dangerous than being crushed by a 300-pound boulder or fighting under the propeller of a spinning plane.
Some stunts were just too risky
Stuntmen Terry Leonard and Charles Waters performed much of the truck chase sequence, which remains one of the coolest moments from the "Indiana Jones" franchise. Leonard was given the task of crawling on the underside of the truck as it was moving at 45mph and both he and Waters were actually thrown from the truck multiple times. As Steven Spielberg explained, "Waters took some very bad spills, landing on his head twice, but what broke his fall was the fact that every time somebody falls out of a truck the action is staged so that he falls down an incline."
A stunt double also took on the task of performing the falling statue feat in the Well of Souls scene. When Indy and Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) are imprisoned inside a temple, they escape by toppling a large statue, which Indy rides as it falls and collides with the temple wall. Stuntman Martin Grace stood in for Ford on that one, presumably because the risk of hitting a wall at that speed or falling from that height would have met Spielberg's criteria for the potential of "death by fatal miscalculation."
Beyond that, Ford was pretty much living up to Vic Armstrong's assessment of him being the actual Indiana Jones, doing as much stunt work as they would let him. And as far as the upcoming fifth outing is concerned, Ford is already said to have been unafraid of getting physical on "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." At 80, he likely won't be running from any giant boulders or dangling off moving trucks for real. But if his recent TV roles have proven anything, he's still willing to take on a challenge.