There’s often speculation when an artist announces a “final” project that this won’t be it — which is why Harrison Ford is still wondering if this really will be his last outing in the battered hat of legendary adventurer Indiana Jones.
But the actor is categorical in his response to BBC News.
“This is my last film,” he says. “And I was always ambitious with this last film.”
It could be argued that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate, the first for the franchise since 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, wasn’t even needed to complete the series, as Ford is now 80 years old.
But the actor says he wanted to give this beloved character an “emotional ending” while acknowledging the passage of time.
“We’ve been making these movies for 40 years, we can’t deny the effect of age on the character, and I wanted to see that develop into a complex story,” he says.
Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen plays the villain in the latest installment of the franchise
The film makes a virtue of the character’s age, showing the archeology professor lamenting while performing action stunts with his godmother Helena, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, as the two hunt down an ancient dial that could change the course of history.
The film is full of jokes about the character as well as Indiana Jones’ greatest enemies, the Nazis, led in this film by Danish actor and former Bond villain Mads Mikkelsen.
But Ford insists he won’t be tempted back: “I wasn’t so interested in doing the same thing over and over again, I wanted to have an emotional ending to this character.
“And I’m so thankful for the audience we had, I just wanted to make sure they were satisfied and happy with the final iteration.”
It is also the first film in the series not to be directed by Steven Spielberg, although he remains an executive producer.
Harrison Ford received an honorary Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival in May
At one point, Dial of Destiny ranked just 52% on the American review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, though it has since risen.
But the nostalgia factor can still be a powerful lure for audiences. Those who remember the 1980s trilogy – Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – include Mikkelsen saying, “Everybody I know would kill me, if I refuse it.
“I watched it for the first time when I was 15 years old. And it was a huge inspiration for me in terms of acting, but also for a lot of my colleagues, a lot of directors.”
Audiences can recall Indiana Jones in all his glory in an extended flashback in this film, played by present-day Harrison Ford and changed by technology.
Ford explains that the images “are exactly what I looked like 35 years ago. It’s not disturbing, it’s not Photoshop, because it’s real images.”
Martin Scorsese’s Irishman also digitally altered Robert De Niro to take his character in the mob movie backwards and forwards in age, and as Dial of Destiny director James Mangold explains, the technology continues to advance.
“Steven Spielberg made four Indiana Jones movies with Harrison, three of them in the era in which the original series is set,” he says.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge played down speculation that the franchise would continue with her character as the lead
So he had a tank of Harrison’s face, every expression, every style of lighting. On top of that, Harrison isn’t a pound heavier than he was when he was 35. So the computer mapping of putting this young flesh, visage on it, is easy because the man’s bones haven’t changed at all.
“And he drives the performance. It’s not just motion capture, it’s a performance based on his acting, knowing that he’s playing a much younger self.”
Emmy-winning actress and Fleabag writer Waller-Bridge took on her first action role as Helena, described by the Guardian review as a “naughty Enid Blyton heroine”.
She says Ford told her to “act like you’re hit” in a punching scene.
“It was a scene where I was going to get hit and I was very tense. And he came and said, ‘Just act like you’re hit. That was the kind of mature advice I got every day,” she jokes.
“But the stunts alone were the time of my life. Now they are my happy place, being thrown off things or tripped over things, sometimes just hanging from the ceiling. It doesn’t get old.”
Ford says her action performance is “terrific – I had no idea she was going to be so capable and so fearless”.
The film received mixed reviews from critics after its premiere at Cannes
But Waller-Bridge reportedly switched off to succeed Harrison Ford if his creators want to continue the franchise. Ford himself quipped to reporters at the US premiere that “Jennifer Lopez would be fantastic” when asked who should succeed him as Indiana Jones.
But the actor did not retire. He would go on to work in two series – the 1923 western with Helen Mirren and Shrinking, where he played a clumsy therapist.
Indiana Jones is now a closed chapter in his life, the actor reiterates, saying, “I just feel a sense of completion.”
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate is out in the UK on Wednesday.