Harrison Ford Cursed Out The Stunt Crew On Indiana Jones: Dial Of Destiny
When Steven Spielberg was shooting "Raiders of the Lost Ark," he was amazed Harrison Ford's stunt team survived. The first Indiana Jones movie remains a charming action adventure classic, but it took some dedicated stunt performers to pull off the hardcore action set pieces throughout, including star Harrison Ford. The leading man basically did all the stunts that didn't involve risking actual death, which meant he was thrust into the action when the worst that could happen was, y'know, a life-changing injury, horrible maiming, or perhaps the loss of a limb.
Case in point: The famous giant boulder chase scene, which involved Ford running in front of a 12-foot, 300-pound boulder made of fiberglass, wood, and plaster. Shooting this sequence required Ford to race the makeshift rock ten times, prompting Spielberg to remark years later, "He was lucky — and I was an idiot for letting him try it."
Now that the veteran star is 80 and about to embark on what will surely be his final adventure as Dr. Jones in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," you might think he's less amenable to doing his own stunts. But you'd be very wrong. In his role as Jacob Dutton in the "Yellowstone" spin-off "1923," Ford impressed director Ben Richardson by braving the often-harsh Montana weather on horseback without ever asking for a double. So, if there's one physical activity the man still knows how to do well as an octogenarian, it's riding a horse. Which might explain why he got a bit upset with the stunt crew while filming "Dial of Destiny."
Indiana Jones and the profanity-laden outburst
It's been widely reported that Harrison Ford was up for getting as physical as director James Mangold would let him on "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." Unfortunately, he managed to injure his shoulder pretty seriously as a result. But that didn't stop Ford from pushing forward with all the stunt work he could manage, putting some wary stunt crew members in their place along the way.
Talking to Variety about the upcoming fifth Indiana Jones movie, the star recalled how three stunt workers tried helping him with his horse-riding scenes, spotting him from the ground as he sat in the saddle. The determined actor took offense to being treated so delicately and responded in the way only Harrison Ford can. As he told the outlet:
"I thought, 'What the f***?' 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. They said, 'Oh, we were just afraid because we thought, you know, and bah bah bah bah.' And I said, 'Leave me the f*** alone ... Leave me alone, I'm an old man getting off a horse and I want it to look like that!'"
No mincing his words there, then. Ford has been very careful about how "Dial of Destiny" treats his age, going to efforts to remove several old age jokes from the script. And his outburst with the stunt crew seems as though it was an extension of that concern for making sure his age doesn't become the defining factor in his performance.
Ford's ongoing grumpiness
Aside from the fact that Ford clearly feels himself perfectly capable of performing various physical feats in his twilight years, he's also famously become a bit crotchety as the decades have gone by. Whereas his early roles, Indiana Jones included, were marked by a wry charm that gave his characters a cheeky, roguish quality, his later roles have seen that facet of his personality toned down, prompting Esquire to construct a timeline of Harrison Ford's grumpiness.
There have been flashes of his former mischievousness showing through of late, mostly in his role in Apple TV+'s "Shrinking," where Ford convinced co-star Jason Segel he was a comedy savant. But for the most part, the "Star Wars" star has emitted a much more serious and, yes, grumpy, aura as he's aged.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. You get the sense his candor with journalists (like when he told The Hollywood Reporter, "I know who the f*** I am") and, in this case, his snapping at stunt team members, is pretty harmless — the no-nonsense approach of a man who's been in Hollywood for decades and isn't taking any crap. But with early critic reactions to "Dial of Destiny" being less than favorable, I can't help but wonder whether some of that early Harrison Ford charm would have helped this latest Indy entry. Of course, we'll all have to reserve judgment for when the film debuts in theaters on June 30, 2023.