Harrison Ford Thanks Tom Selleck for Turning Down Indiana Jones Role

More than 40 years after the franchise began, Harrison Ford is thanking Tom Selleck for turning down the role of Indiana Jones. In a recent panel conversation, Ford opened up about playing the iconic role, and noted that he wouldn’t have had it if it wasn’t for Selleck having to exit the first movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, due to his responsibilities on Magnum P.I. “How I got the job? Tom Selleck had the job, but he also incurred an obligation to do a television series and he was unable to get out of that contract,” Ford said, as noted by Deadline. 

“I became the second choice, and I’m very grateful for Tom,” Ford went on to say. “Thank you, Tom, man. If you’re listening, thank you again.” The actor then revealed how George Lucas urged him to read the script and speak with director Steven Spielberg. “He said ‘I want you to read it right away, I want you to read it in an hour.’ I sat down, I read it an an hour,” Ford recalled, “and he said ‘I want you to go over to Steven Spielberg’s house and talk to him.’ I went to Steven Spielberg’s house, I had never met Steven Spielberg before. I guess about an hour later I had the job.” Notably, Lucas created the , after he and Ford first worked together on Star Wars: A New Hope in the late ’70s.

During the panel discussion, Ford was asked how he went about “finding” the character while playing Indiana Jones for the first time in Raiders of the Lost Ark. “There was a guy in the middle of the jungle with a whip and a leather jacket,” he quipped. “Pretty hot out for a leather jacket, and a heavy felt hat, and he was an archeologist and he was a professor, and what more would you need to know as an actor? This is a guy who carries a whip. You know what that means.”

Interestingly, according to an Empire magazine, Lucas had previously been reluctant on offering the role to Ford, as he was not interested in having a close actor/director collaborative relationship, like the one shared by Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. “I doubted he’d go for a three-picture deal – he didn’t want to on Star Wars,” Lucas told the outlet for an oral history of the Indiana Jones franchise. “And we had three pictures. Steven said to try anyway. I went to Harrison and he read the script and said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do a three-picture deal. I’d love to.’” Ford has since portrayed the character in a total of five movies, the last of which is Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which premieres in theaters this Friday, June 30.