Antonio Banderas talks working with Harrison Ford on Indiana Jones 5
Exclusive: Antonio Banderas talks his experience of filming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Indiana Jones 5, officially titled Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, sees Harrison Ford return as the famous archeologist adventurer. The film, the fifth in the franchise, features a stacked cast, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Toby Jones, and Mads Mikkelsen all part of the line-up – along with Antonio Banderas.
While speaking to Banderas about Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, we asked the actor just what it was like to work with Ford, who's back in his iconic role for the final time.
"It was beautiful to just be close to him," Banderas tells the Inside Total Film podcast. "Some interviewers today, they say to me, 'Oh my God, I was 7 when Shrek 2 came out, and so now I'm 27 and interviewing you and I've been watching your movies since that time.' But the same thing happened to me with Harrison. I remember the first time I saw Indiana Jones, and I flipped out. So just being there, it was beautiful."
Banderas revealed a few tantalizing details about his role, too. "My character is very little. He's not a bad guy, he's a friend of Indiana, helping at some point in the movie. But it's not very big."
The actor also revealed that he had a lot to juggle while filming. "And at the same time, I'm performing Company, a musical that I was doing and am still doing – tonight I have to go to the theater. We have two weeks to go. But I was just performing here [in Madrid], and because of the COVID situation, [I was going] back to London, back to Spain, back to London, back to Spain, back to London. I had no resting days at the theater, because I had to travel. So it was tricky."
Despite that, though, Banderas is still thrilled by his involvement in the movie. "But, just to be there. Just that my name is attached to Indiana Jones, is something that – I don't know. if my daughter has a baby someday, I can tell her 'Hey, Grandpa did a movie with Indiana Jones.' [Laughs]"
Indiana Jones 5 arrives in theaters this June 30, while Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is in cinemas from February 3. For more from our interview with Banderas, check out the latest episode of Inside Total Film, available on:
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You can also see our interviews with the actor and The Last Wish director Joel Crawford. For everything else 2023 has in store for us, there's our roundup of all the upcoming major movie release dates.
I'm a Senior Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.