Blogs
on April 20, 2026
**Raiders of the Lost Ark is a movie that has its own behind-the-scenes mythology as is. But going back to when you first got the script, what was your impression of it? It's very Lucas and Spielberg, but also unlike anything they'd done previously. What was your first thought
But that thing with Harrison doing the shooting instead of the sword sequence, which was rehearsed, was because he got ill. It wasn't for time purposes. We all got dysentery from Tunisia, working there. I think the only people who didn't get ill were Steven, who had his food flown in cans from Fortnum & Mason, and Howard G. Kazanjian, the producer. Everyone else at some point or other got ill, I think - I'm trying to remember whether Karen got ill. Anyway, I got ill right at the end of the picture. But Harrison got ill when he was meant to do that sword fight that he'd rehearsed the day before, and he just couldn't move that much. If he'd moved, he'd have had a terrible accident. So he said, "Why don't I just shoot the f*cker?" And that's how that wonderful moment came aro
I'm afraid I might disappoint you. It's very much the same thing. Steven doesn't give any acting direction - that is, he doesn't talk about [it]. He expects you to have done your research; to have done the background stuff. He's not going to tell you what you should be thinking as a character at this point in time. What he will say while you're working is, "Look right, look left" because he's looking at what the visual looks like. It's the great thing about somebody who knows their job so well. Once somebody who knows their jobs so well makes a choice, then you just go with it. And that was always apparent with him. It would be breathtaking: you'd come on the set, expecting to do a scene which in the script is a small scene in a tent - a small scene between me and Anthony Higgins and Wolf Kahler, which was set in a tent. When I got to the set, it was an enormous valley. It was a construction site. People with donkeys and ladders carrying sand around, as though they were building the pyramids. And that was entirely Steven leading with his vis
The Deathblade stays human throughout its attacks, but that doesn't make this Lost Ark assassin any less deadly . The real power behind this particular character is that several of its bigger attacks allow it to move quite quickly, getting close enough for the kill and then withdrawing out of harm's way before the enemy can do any real dam
Watching the movie again, via Myjourneyalongtheway what stood out to me is how you're barefoot for so much of the movie - including places that would really hurt in real life, like burning sand and rough rocks. How was that to film? Because that definitely looks like a challe
You know, I go back to it. I mean, I very rarely to say to myself, "Gee, I think I'll watch Raiders of the Lost Ark." But there are often screenings of it that I get invited to, and I get asked to introduce it or to do a Q&A afterwards. There's one I'm going to do this August. So, usually when those happen, I will sit with the audience and watch it again. Because often, I haven't seen it for a while, and I just want to have the same experience that they're having with them. I would say I usually will end up seeing it once a year, or maybe sometimes twice a year. It's a film that follows through my life. There's a lot of films I've made that I saw when they came out and haven't seen them since. But this is this is not one of those; this is one that has stayed very much a part of my life experie
Given how many comic book movies are around these days, it's easy to forget how difficult it can be to introduce a character no one has ever heard of and make the audience cheer for them almost immediat
Swelter tries hard to be an edgy contemporary Western , but it falls very, very short of its goal. This heist film stars Lennie James as a former professional thief turned small-town sheriff who is hunted down by his former breth
A rom-com that does nothing to stand out from the sea of rom-coms , We'll Never Have Paris is directed by real-life couple Simon Helberg and Jocelyn Towne. The film dramatizes the actual events surrounding their engagement, with Helberg playing a fictionalized version of himself named Quinn and Melanie Lynskey playing his love interest, De
While all of the classes in Lost Ark have customizations that seem a bit deeper than other MMOs, the Gunner has more options than most. Gunslinger, Artillerist, Deadeye, and Sharpshooter, are all long-range attack specialists who have varying degrees of power. Some, of the subclasses in this group, like the Gunslinger are more focused on debuffing and staggering opponents, where the Artillerist is all about raining down fire on their enem
There was a different kind of intensity. Because of 1941, the intensity was in the speed with which we had to make it. Steven has spoken about this quite a bit since, but it taught him that you didn't need to take all the time he was taking in making a movie before; that he could work fast without losing the quality. They had all sorts of clauses in their contract between each other, Steven and George, to make sure that Steven came in on time and under budget - which he did. It was a very fast shoot, in the sense that in Tunisia in the heat there, Steven would run between setups. The film crew was the same film crew that I'd been working with on Dogs of War immediately before in Belize, which was hot too - and humid heat. But in Tunisia, they were falling asleep at lunchtime in their food because Steven was just running them ragged. As soon as he said "Cut!" in one set, he would run across the sand to the next set and say, "Alright, I'm here! Next." He drove the thing like a steam eng
But that thing with Harrison doing the shooting instead of the sword sequence, which was rehearsed, was because he got ill. It wasn't for time purposes. We all got dysentery from Tunisia, working there. I think the only people who didn't get ill were Steven, who had his food flown in cans from Fortnum & Mason, and Howard G. Kazanjian, the producer. Everyone else at some point or other got ill, I think - I'm trying to remember whether Karen got ill. Anyway, I got ill right at the end of the picture. But Harrison got ill when he was meant to do that sword fight that he'd rehearsed the day before, and he just couldn't move that much. If he'd moved, he'd have had a terrible accident. So he said, "Why don't I just shoot the f*cker?" And that's how that wonderful moment came aro
I'm afraid I might disappoint you. It's very much the same thing. Steven doesn't give any acting direction - that is, he doesn't talk about [it]. He expects you to have done your research; to have done the background stuff. He's not going to tell you what you should be thinking as a character at this point in time. What he will say while you're working is, "Look right, look left" because he's looking at what the visual looks like. It's the great thing about somebody who knows their job so well. Once somebody who knows their jobs so well makes a choice, then you just go with it. And that was always apparent with him. It would be breathtaking: you'd come on the set, expecting to do a scene which in the script is a small scene in a tent - a small scene between me and Anthony Higgins and Wolf Kahler, which was set in a tent. When I got to the set, it was an enormous valley. It was a construction site. People with donkeys and ladders carrying sand around, as though they were building the pyramids. And that was entirely Steven leading with his vis
The Deathblade stays human throughout its attacks, but that doesn't make this Lost Ark assassin any less deadly . The real power behind this particular character is that several of its bigger attacks allow it to move quite quickly, getting close enough for the kill and then withdrawing out of harm's way before the enemy can do any real dam
Watching the movie again, via Myjourneyalongtheway what stood out to me is how you're barefoot for so much of the movie - including places that would really hurt in real life, like burning sand and rough rocks. How was that to film? Because that definitely looks like a challe
You know, I go back to it. I mean, I very rarely to say to myself, "Gee, I think I'll watch Raiders of the Lost Ark." But there are often screenings of it that I get invited to, and I get asked to introduce it or to do a Q&A afterwards. There's one I'm going to do this August. So, usually when those happen, I will sit with the audience and watch it again. Because often, I haven't seen it for a while, and I just want to have the same experience that they're having with them. I would say I usually will end up seeing it once a year, or maybe sometimes twice a year. It's a film that follows through my life. There's a lot of films I've made that I saw when they came out and haven't seen them since. But this is this is not one of those; this is one that has stayed very much a part of my life experie
Given how many comic book movies are around these days, it's easy to forget how difficult it can be to introduce a character no one has ever heard of and make the audience cheer for them almost immediat
A rom-com that does nothing to stand out from the sea of rom-coms , We'll Never Have Paris is directed by real-life couple Simon Helberg and Jocelyn Towne. The film dramatizes the actual events surrounding their engagement, with Helberg playing a fictionalized version of himself named Quinn and Melanie Lynskey playing his love interest, De
While all of the classes in Lost Ark have customizations that seem a bit deeper than other MMOs, the Gunner has more options than most. Gunslinger, Artillerist, Deadeye, and Sharpshooter, are all long-range attack specialists who have varying degrees of power. Some, of the subclasses in this group, like the Gunslinger are more focused on debuffing and staggering opponents, where the Artillerist is all about raining down fire on their enem
There was a different kind of intensity. Because of 1941, the intensity was in the speed with which we had to make it. Steven has spoken about this quite a bit since, but it taught him that you didn't need to take all the time he was taking in making a movie before; that he could work fast without losing the quality. They had all sorts of clauses in their contract between each other, Steven and George, to make sure that Steven came in on time and under budget - which he did. It was a very fast shoot, in the sense that in Tunisia in the heat there, Steven would run between setups. The film crew was the same film crew that I'd been working with on Dogs of War immediately before in Belize, which was hot too - and humid heat. But in Tunisia, they were falling asleep at lunchtime in their food because Steven was just running them ragged. As soon as he said "Cut!" in one set, he would run across the sand to the next set and say, "Alright, I'm here! Next." He drove the thing like a steam eng