Bored with movies about beautiful people who are indestructible: ‘Indiana Jones 5’ dir James Mangold

New Delhi, Jun 29 (PTI) Director James Mangold says movies often become about beautiful people who are “just like Teflon”. That’s why the filmmaker likes to put his characters in “crisis” to drive the drama, something he did with Hollywood royalty Harrison Ford in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”.

In “Dial of Destiny”, Ford returns as the titular character, now on the cusp of retirement as a professor of archaeology, who is forced to go on a thrilling, globe-trotting adventure to help his estranged goddaughter, Helena Shaw, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

The plot of the fifth “Indiana Jones” film has thematic similarities to Mangold’s “Logan”, a movie fronted by Hugh Jackman’s mutant Wolverine, who was also in his twilight years.

Drawing parallels between the two iconic characters, the American director said in order to make a good story, the protagonist has to be facing something.

“We all face ageing and death. We all face the world changing around us and having to adapt. In Logan’s case, he was about 250 years old when he passed… “Frankly, I am bored with movies about beautiful people who are indestructible. I think that it’s just a snooze. Honestly, I have no connection to it. I am not beautiful and I am not indestructible. So the reality is, it’s just kind of simple,” Mangold told PTI in a virtual roundtable interview.

Often films are about watching the tactics of the protagonist as they navigate explosions and throw “a couple of smart lines and then the thing ends”, he said.

“But I don’t know what was ever at stake for these people’s hearts in the movie. We have got into movies where these characters are just like Teflon…

“When you are stepping onto a movie that people perceive is about a hero, which is true for Wolverine and Indiana Jones, the idea is to try and position the hero in the first act of your story in a place where it is not so easy for them to be that person anymore. And, because it automatically puts them in a crisis that makes the drama dramatic,” he added.

The 59-year-old director said when an actor like Ford, also known for cult franchises like “Star Wars” and “Blade Runner”, is on board, he doesn’t want him “just playing capability in every scene”.

“What’s really interesting for him is to walk into a scene without the tools he needs to survive. That’s the problem we are more interested in playing,” he said.

“Dial of Destiny” is the first film in the “Indiana Jones” franchise that is neither directed by Steven Spielberg nor written by George Lucas, with both serving as executive producers instead.

Calling Spielberg as someone who has had a “huge influence” on his life, the director said he brought “a profound admiration” for the latest film in the action adventure series.

“My first interest wasn’t to try and bend something that is working so well to my will but was rather to have fun in this sandbox that George and Steven and Harrison and so many others have created. I often think that we don’t have to think about what we are bringing to ourselves. So if I am going to bring who I am, it’s going to happen. I don’t have to actualise it. I don’t have to make a ground plan for that.

“As a bunch of collaborators working together, even though the director’s chair was filled by someone different, the previous director was a text away and watching everything daily and was developing the script with us as well. These are the people who all see and cherish the same things. These are movies not about superheroes or indestructible souls but extremely vulnerable souls who just happen to be brave on this day and are taking on the enemy,” Mangold added.

The Oscar-nominated director also revealed that he and co-writers Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, and David Koepp wrote Helena’s character with “Fleabag” star Waller-Bridge in mind.

“We were writing it for her even though we had no idea that she would do it. We were writing it became very clear that we were writing about a father who lost his son and a daughter who lost her father and as Harrison said at a platonic level but also on an important level that each one needed the other emotionally at some point of the story,” he said.

Describing Helena, an accomplished con artist who deals in antiquities, as “revolutionary”, Mangold said working with the British multihyphenate was pure joy.

“She bought a lot of energy and crackle. She is a writer herself, she is a brilliant dramatic or a comedic actress…

“When we both watched her two seasons of ‘Fleabag’ that she created and starred in, (we saw) that she has a unique modern ability but also one I have seen in classic old actresses of the golden age… To be both charming and dangerous. Someone you are desperate to fall in love with but you know it might destroy you at the same time.”

The film, which hit the screens in India on Thursday, also stars Mads Mikkelsen. The Danish star plays Jurgen Voller, a former Nazi during World War II who has been hired by NASA and seeks to use the Apollo moon landing programme for his own gain.

Mangold called Mikkelsen’s character “kind of like Indiana Jones of Nazi Germany”.

“He is in a way an academic, a scientist trying to pursue his own goals. I really enjoyed it and I think Mads really enjoyed playing it. He has kind of an odd admiration for ‘Indiana Jones’… As much as they are on the polar opposite sides of idealism, their own sense of wounds about being lost in this modern world are shared.”

The director, also known for “Girl, Interrupted” and “Ford v Ferrari”, said he was unsure about the actor joining the cast. But he said yes to “Dial of Destiny” in 24 hours of offering him the part.

“This was evidence of the power of ‘Indiana Jones’ because even to a young man growing up in Denmark this movie had a powerful effect on him… He watched it 5 times the first weekend he ever saw it and something I could never predict,” he added.