A Quirky Hat Move In Indiana Jones 5 Was Improvised By Harrison Ford Himself
Whether you loved or hated "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" you can't deny that the movie was very important to its star Harrison Ford. Listen to any of his interviews promoting the film or watch his speech at the Cannes premiere and you can hear the emotion in his voice when he looks back on all his work as Indiana Jones and how grateful he is to make a final movie where the iconic screen hero's arc mirrors his own.
For the filmmakers, showing the aging archeologist growing distant from the world around him was the reason to make this sequel, and audiences more or less agree with them. While the movie was mixed for critics and didn't set the box office on fire, it currently stands at an 88% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. That means that most people who went and saw it really liked it.
I'm one of those people! I found it thoughtful and poignant and more fun than an action movie with an 80-year-old star should have any right being. And I think that's due, in large part, to Harrison Ford's commitment to the role and his willingness to be as present and invested as he was 40 years ago.
Peek-a-boo
Case in point: the scene early on when a de-aged Indy has an adventure on a Nazi train trying to make off with all the stolen artifacts and valuable art they can as WW2 is coming to an end.
Harrison Ford may have been de-aged for this sequence, but it's still him under that digital makeup. The downside is you have an older guy talking and moving ... well, like an older guy, even though he looks young. The upside, though, is you get the mind that made Indiana Jones an icon there in the moment to contribute sometimes tiny things that all add up to make the character feel right.
One moment like that is when Indy encounters Mads Mikkelsen's Dr. Voller. He just smiles at the dude before holding his fedora up to his face and following that up with a heavy punch. We've never seen Indy do that before, but it just feels right, right? Well, that was all Harrison Ford's idea.
Oh, and another interesting bit of trivia about this scene: remember when they had to shut down production because Ford got injured? Well, it was this exact shot. He was rehearsing his movement so director James Mangold and his cinematographer would know what Ford was going for and he tore his subscapularis off the rotator in his shoulder. It required surgery and Ford was out of commission for a month before he could get back in front of the camera again.
Yet another example of just how invested he was in Indiana Jones. He didn't even pull his punches during the rehearsal!