Geek Exclusive: Female Stars of ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ Gush Over First Meeting With Harrison Ford

Her name is linked to Emmy award-winning British comedy series Fleabag, which she created, wrote and starred in, as well as spy-thriller Killing Eve, a series she wrote and produced, but actress, screenwriter and producer Phoebe Waller-Bridge is looking to add another notch to her bedpost – adrenaline junkie. On screen of course.

While comedy, sex and psychopathic female rage have been the Primetime Emmy Award, Golden Globes and British Academy Television Award winner’s brand since she started out, the 37-year-old is now eyeing more action roles, having tasted the rush in James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth and final entry to the popular action-adventure franchise, where she plays Helena Shaw, a fellow enthusiast of old relics and artefacts and god-daughter of the titular character. 

Fond of getting into trouble, Waller-Bridge’s Helena is the most action she’s done in a project, and if given the chance, she’d want to do it again. 

“The action scenes. Anything with action. Action. Action, I just want to do action forever,” said Waller-Bridge in an exclusive interview with Geek Culture. “I loved the adrenaline of being on a stationary motorbike with rain lashing in my face, in a studio with someone dressed in a green alien suit, like behind me, never been happier.” 

In the film that marks Harrison Ford’s last outing as the famous archaeologist, Helena is jumping from roof to roof, speeding in a tuk-tuk and scaling walls of ancient tombs. Shooting these action scenes was nothing like what she expected, but the actress did have a lot of fun. 

“The alien suit, the green screen and he’s gonna take the bikes and goes like this, and then I pretend [to ride the bike] and I go, ‘Oh my god, this is so much fun!’” exclaimed Waller-Bridge while vigorously shaking her hands in the air to mimic being shaken on a stationary bike. 

While Indiana Jones has built a reputation for himself as a legendary archaeologist with his signature hat and whip, Helena has gone down a crooked path of selling procured treasures in the black market, rubbing shoulders with gangs and manipulating the hearts of men to get herself out of jail one too many times. She’s cunning, witty and a little bit too happy-go-lucky for an individual who finds herself in numerous dangerous situations. 

“I really wanted to keep her upbeat and joyful. She’s incredibly smart but [has a] lack of awareness of consequences. She’s never really suffered proper consequences and even the one she has, she was in jail for a couple of years, she kind of was like, ‘Hey, it was jail!’, shared Waller-Bridge about her character. 

“There’s something about her that is not completely connected to real life, and she’s in denial. And I think that that was like part of the journey, that eventually she’s faced with someone she loves and she might lose them and suddenly, everything becomes very real to her. So I really wanted to keep that kind of almost sort of delusional, ‘Everything’s gonna be fine!’ energy that she had.” 

Despite years of experience in writing complex and interesting female characters, Waller-Bridge was not involved in the writing and characterisation of Helena. The actress was more than happy to take on the character as she felt an instant connection to her. The script also helped her perform better as an actress and in bringing the character to life with justice. 

“I can’t really claim anything in particular, because she leapt off the page to me when I read her. It’s such a gift when you read a script, and the character makes sense to you and you also feel like ‘Oh, I can do this,’. Like I know, for some reason, I feel connected to this person,” shared Waller-Bridge. 

“That’s about casting something right and the best gift you can give an actor is to cast him with something that feels like there’s a resonance, and I resonated with her and so whatever came out of like me and Helena doing this together, really started there.” 

The only tiny input she had was that Helena does not poke fun at Indy’s age because, to some degree, people are measured on how useful they are to her in achieving her goals. 

“I really didn’t want her to have to call him like an old guy, or like use any of those kinds of insults with him. That was a debate that Jim (director James Mangold) and I had the whole time because I was like, ‘She doesn’t see people in that way.’,” explained Waller-Bridge. 

“She’s got a sidekick who’s 14 and she’s going on an adventure with someone who’s in his late 70s. I just don’t think she sees people in that in that way. She’s just sort of like, ‘If you’re useful to me, we’ll go. If you’re not, see you later.’.”

As Indiana Jones’ god-daughter, Helena is the female lead across Ford, and yes, that brought about its own kind of pressure, so Waller-Bridge couldn’t help but get a bit nervous in meeting and working with him. Thankfully, Ford was incredibly nice to work with and the nerves quickly went away. 

“Well, I think when you know the character you’re playing, it affords you a kind of confidence to go in with that. When the door first opened, they were like, ‘You’re about to meet Harrison Ford’. I came in knowing I have such deep respect for this man but I also have to be able to meet him on a level for this to work because they have to be a match for each other. So I went in with that kind of nerves and I was like, ‘How do I?’. There’s a risk that I could come in and be like, too familiar or something,” laughed Waller-Bridge, recalling her first time meeting Ford. 

“But luckily, I walked in and he just went, ‘Hey!’ from the first moment I saw him and he was so warm and so cool and so interested in my thoughts and my take on everything. And we just got talking immediately, like old friends, I felt like I’d known him for like 2000 years, it was really, really lovely,” she continued. 

“And, you know, he checks in all the time. He’s like, ‘What do you guys think?’ and that makes a big difference, and whenever I’d be like talking about this, why don’t we like rehearse this little moment, I think could be quite fun. He’s like, ‘No, we’ve already got it, save it for when the camera’s on’ that kind of thing so yeah, it was organic.” 

Waller-Bridge isn’t the only cast member nervous to work with Ford, but unlike Waller-Bridge, Shaunette Renee Wilson’s (Black Panther) secret agent Mason doesn’t start off as someone who knows Indy. In fact, she doesn’t and is actually on the hunt for Helena. Her attempts to turn Helena in gets disrupted by Indy, who is now protective of his god-daughter, and suspicious of Mason’s people and the agency she works with. This means that Mason and Indy share quite a bit of disagreement on screen, which called for the actress to shout at Ford in real life. 

“I had a verbal lashing, not necessarily a physical thing but he can handle it, he’s definitely in shape. More in shape than many of us are at half his age – I’m not half his age, I’m younger than that – but he definitely held his own. It was actually incredible to watch him do his own stunts in some of the fight scenes, be handcuffed and still be able to get up without bracing on anyone, just really nimble,” said Wilson. 

“He’s just a human, which is great to kind of like dispel any fear about someone of his calibre putting on airs, or being a little bit of a, I don’t know, a diva in some sense, but I was like ‘Mr. Ford’ and he just immediately was like, ‘Do not call me Mr. Ford. It’s Harrison’. I really love it because we’re the same and in a lot of ways, we’re both actors and that was really lovely.” 

Dial of Destiny, as the title suggests, deals with themes of destiny and time-travelling, as Indy races against time to retrieve the legendary dial that can change the course of history. And if the two actresses had a chance, they would want to go back in time and witness history in the making.

For Waller-Bridge, it would be to visit Ancient Egypt to witness Cleopatra and King Herod’s first meetings. 

“There was apparently a meeting between King Herod and Cleopatra that no one really knows what happened in that meeting, but she famously didn’t manage to seduce him in a way that she managed to seduce many other political men and I want to be a fly on that wall,” smiled a cheeky Waller-Bridge. 

As for Wilson, she would want to immerse herself in a time period close to her heart, of just 100 years ago. 

“I would just want to be back in 1920s, Harlem. Harlem Renaissance, all of the art and literature and energy of that time period in that area of my city – I’m from New York – would have been really, really lovely.” 

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny releases on 30 June 2023.