Don’t expect Chris Pratt to brandish a bullwhip while wearing a fedora anytime soon.
Appearing on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, the 43-year-old actor said he has no plans to step into Indiana Jones’s boots, which have belonged to Harrison Ford since 1981.
Revealing the reason behind his decision to steer clear of the franchise, Pratt blamed Ford’s past comments and said they scared him to even consider taking on the role in the future.
“All I know is I once saw a quote from Harrison Ford … and I don’t even know if it was really him, but it was enough to scare me, that was like, ‘When I die, Indiana Jones dies,’” he said in the podcast released Tuesday.
“I’m like, ‘Am I gonna, like, get haunted by the ghost of Harrison Ford one day when he dies if I play…?’”
Pratt is seemingly referring to Ford’s 2019 interview on The Today Show, where he said, “Don’t you get it? I’m Indiana Jones. When I’m gone, he’s gone. It’s easy.”
“This is a hell of a way to tell Chris Pine this. I’m sorry, man,” the actor, 80, said laughing, jokingly mistaking Pratt for Pine.
Rumors of Pratt taking on the role first began to swirl in 2015 after Disney bought the movie rights for the film from Paramount just two years prior.
“That’s not anything that is real,” Pratt said, slashing any hopes of him taking on the role.
Ford has played the role in four movies, starting with Raiders of the Lost Ark back in 1981 before Temple of Doom (1984), The Last Crusade (1989) and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).
It comes as actor Antonio Banderas, who also stars in the upcoming Indiana Jones film, told USA Today how “unbelievable” it was seeing Ford on set in costume.
“The first day I arrived, I was in the makeup trailer, and I turned around, and there he was in the full Indiana costume with the hat and the whip,” he told the outlet.
“Phoebe Waller-Bridge was there with him, too, and it was so cool. I still remember the first time I saw ‘Indiana Jones’ in a theater and the crowd was crazy about it.”
“I thought, ‘This is like going back to the old adventure (movies) in a completely different way,’” Banderas added.
The fifth installment of the “Indiana Jones” franchise will be released on June 30, 2023.