Karen Allen Reflects On The End of ‘Indiana Jones’ and Marion Ravenwood’s Journey
While Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones has achieved legendary status over the years, the character has worked best when he has a foil.
Kate Capshaw and Ke Huy Quan filled that role in Temple of Doom, Sean Connery in The Last Crusade, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Dial of Destiny.
No one, however, has ever matched Indy in the way that Karen Allen’s Marion Ravenwood did in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
While she may not figure prominently in Ford’s final Indiana Jones film, Allen did return for Dial of Destiny. For the actress, she is glad that the cat is out of the bag.
“Secrets,” Allen chuckled in a recent interview, “are not my specialty.”
A Meaningful Relationship
For Allen, the relationship between Indiana and Marion has always been a meaningful one. After falling in love in Raiders, the duo eventually married in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
“It’s funny. When I first started working on it, I just decided that Indy was the love of her life. I just decided to make a deep commitment to that and to play through Raiders of the Lost Ark with the feeling they’re soulmates,” Allen recalls. “When we end up married in Crystal Skull, I wept when I read that script.”
Returning As Marion
Dial of Destiny, however, finds Marion and Indy driven apart by grief. It is revealed that the couple’s son Mutt has died in the Vietnam War.
For Allen, the story is as heartbreaking as it is meaningful.
“It was fantastic. We shot it all in one day or maybe two days. To just imagine these two people that have been wrenched apart through grief and loss and then she’s coming back with this hope that they can move forward. When we played the scene, that was very, very affecting. We were both very affected by it and a little teary. And the crew was a little teary.”
End Of An Era
With Harrison Ford stating that he is done portraying Indiana Jones, the franchise will come to an end. Allen recognizes the end of an era.
“More so for Harrison than for me. He’s such a fully developed character and has done all five of these. With Marion, I’ve kind of come and gone. But she will always be a character that moves through life with me. I don’t know if I really have a sense of it being over. There always was a sense that one more would be done, even if it took 20 years. Now, they’ve been very clear that this is the last one. So it is a letting go.”
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is in theaters now.
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