Harrison Ford is aware that old age rumors can deteriorate.
"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," a 80-year-old actress, has revealed that director James Mangold (who co-wrote the film with Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth) removed the "old jokes" in the original script pointing to Ford and his hero's real-life age. The actor has been playing the archaeologist for 42 years.
Ford told The Hollywood Reporter that there were a lot of old jokes in the script. We took them all out. "There is a moment where he observes himself in this situation and says, 'What the fuck am I doing here?' But I want to see situations in which the audience gets a chance to experience the story, not to be guided through the nose with highlights pointed out."
Mangold, co-writer and director, said, "In films, the mistake you can make is when someone is of a mature age but the film continues this charade that they are not that old." Every challenge he faces is related to what someone of that age would be confronted with."
Ford "sees for ways to make life more enjoyable, to correct the false moments, and to despise his own character." He has a great understanding of how to be a hero and how to subvert heroism at the same time.
With "Dial of Destiny" beginning in 1944 and predominantly taking place in 1969, Ford was also de-aged for certain sequences of his final role as Indy.
"My hope is that you just watch it and think, 'Oh my God, these people just discovered footage," Kathleen Kennedy, producer and Lucasfilm CEO in an earlier interview with Empire. "We're taking you into an adventure, something Indy is looking for, and instantly you realize you're in an Indiana Jones film."
While Ford has described seeing the digitalized younger version of himself as "spooky," he also said it was a "fantastic" feat in technological advancement.
Ford said of his real face at the age of 19. "It's amazing how they use it."