Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny stars Mads Mikkelsen and Phoebe Waller-Bridge felt honored to join the franchise led by Harrison Ford as the iconic titular character, Indiana Jones.
Phoebe plays Helena Shaw and Mads is Dr. Voller in what has been touted as the “final chapter” in the saga of one of the biggest cinematic icons.
The Dial of Destiny is directed by James Mangold and premieres in Philippine cinemas today.
“It’s not my first franchise. But it’s the first one I grew up with. I’ve been lying in all the other interviews — when I did Bond and Star Wars. I always said I saw them, but I didn’t,” Mads quipped during a global presscon for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
He further narrated his “history” with the legendary screen hero Indiana “Indy” Jones, “I grew up with this one. And I remember my brother and I, we might have been cheap. Well, normally, my brother always had a girlfriend who worked in a cinema somewhere, but he didn’t in this period, so we rented the film.
“We ended up renting it together with five other films. And we ended up watching Indiana Jones five times and not the other ones.”
Mads believes that Indiana Jones truly shaped his generation. “I have plenty of friends who are, specifically, directors, film directors who started out because of that one film. So obviously, sitting there, as a kid and just wanting to be him (Indiana Jones) or be up there and not wanting to be an actor at all, it is an enormous honor to be, 42 years later, part of this world.”
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is set in 1969 and audiences will find Indiana Jones, the adrenaline junkie of an archeologist, “ready to call it quits,” as per synopsis.
After having taught for over a decade at New York’s Hunter College, the esteemed professor of archaeology is preparing to retire to his modest apartment where he’s been living by his lonesome. Things change after a surprise visit from his estranged goddaughter Helena, who is seeking a rare artifact that her father entrusted to Indy years earlier. This is the infamous Archimedes Dial, a “device that purportedly holds the power to locate fissures in time.”
It turns out Helena is an accomplished con artist and she steals the Dial to sell the artifact to the highest bidder, which leaves Indiana having no choice but to put on his fedora and leather jacket one last time to go after her.
Making things complicated is the presence of Indy’s old nemesis, Jürgen Voller, a former Nazi being employed by the US government for its space program, who also wants his hands on the Dial to achieve his own terrifying plans that can alter history.
During a global virtual presscon, Mads and Phoebe further talked more about their characters.
Asked about the “strengths” and “weaknesses” of their characters, Phoebe said, “I think Helena’s wit is a great strength, and I think she’s self-sufficient, and she’s imaginative. And she’s got a good sense of humor. I’d also consider her weakness her strength (laughs) — that she doesn’t really look before she leaps.
“And there’s a fearlessness in her that can be misconstrued as recklessness. So even though that’s something that I love about her, I just think that’s what gets her into trouble,” she added.
“And I think she probably doesn’t really know how to ask for help in a real way. That’s given her a steeliness in her life, but that’s part of the journey I loved going on with her; is that she has to open up a little bit.”
Mads, for his part, joked that his character Dr. Voller doesn’t have any weaknesses.
Director James Mangold interjected, “He’s a Nazi.”
“Oh, that’s the one,” Mads readily agreed.
“Keep forgetting that part. Yeah, I think that his passion is his strength and is also his weakness because his passion for his job, for math, for science, for a brighter future is obviously strength. And this, his passion for the party (laughs) and the Third Reich will be his downfall.”
Asked how he approaches his bad-guy roles and how he makes each villain role unique and unforgettable, Mads said, “It’s not only me, I guess. It’s in the story. It’s in the script. It’s on the page somewhere, and so, it’s up to Jim (James Mangold), and I, and my fellow actors to find the parameters of the character.”
“As we’d just spoken about, this is my first Nazi, so that makes a difference. I try to find what’s humanizing them to a degree. If I cannot relate to what they dream about, I’ll replace that with something else that I can dream about because this character has passion. And if I don’t understand that, I’ll just have to replace that passion with something else. And so, hopefully the story goes up in a unit at the end,” he added.
Meanwhile, talking about the importance of Helena’s relationship with Indiana Jones, Phoebe said, “I think she’s the right person to come into his life at this time because it feels like he’s in a little bit of an emotional cul-de-sac. I also think he’s now living in a time where the focus has shifted. People are looking to the future. People are looking to the moon. And there isn’t as much passion for what he is passionate about.
“And so, when she comes in, not only does she bring a breeze of, like, joy from his past, and this past relationship he had with her father and the joy of that. She brings a passion for archaeology. She brings a passion for adventure, and I think that lights him up again.
“And I think she’s very clever for doing that ‘cause she actually has her own nefarious agenda, of course. But, I think, ironically, the thing that she learns in the end is that that passion that she was kind of faking at the beginning, is the thing that she discovers for real by the end. And that’s through experiencing this adventure with Indy. So I think she learns about that.”
Phoebe also said that Helena learns from Indiana how important it is to be vulnerable at times. “I think there’s a moment at the end where she opens up, and she reveals that she cares about Indy, and that he’s important to her. And that forges a new relationship for her. Whether or not they continue with their friendship, which I believe they do, she’s forever changed by that act.”
Lastly, Phoebe loves that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny happens “cross generationally.”
“I think it’s a really important and beautiful story to tell,” she concluded.