The strange test Steven Spielberg set for every member of the ‘Indiana Jones’ cast
The vast majority of actors would leap at the chance to audition for the latest Steven Spielberg movie, especially when George Lucas was heavily involved, too. And yet, there was an unusual test utilised by the filmmaker that left one Indiana Jones auditionee particularly stumped.
Although the concept for an old-fashioned adventure inspired by the pulp serials Spielberg and Lucas had adored since childhood had been kicking around since 1973, it wasn’t until Jaws and Star Wars completely changed the face of cinema that the bearded best buddies finally put their plan in motion.
Tom Selleck was famously offered the title role before his commitment to Magnum P.I. ruled him out of the running, with Lucas’ Star Wars cohort Harrison Ford drafted in and creating his second all-time cinematic icon in the process.
Another name to put themselves forward was Harry Hamlin, who ended up securing his own breakout role in 1981’s Clash of the Titans, which coincidentally released on the very same day as Raiders of the Lost Ark. As it turned out, maybe his culinary skills weren’t quite up to scratch, with Spielberg putting forth a character-building exercise that came completely out of the blue.
Reading opposite Stephanie Zimbalist – who was eying the part of Marion Ravenwood – it completely passed Hamlin by that baking a cake was part of the deal. “It never occurred to me that we were actually in the audition while we were making the cake,” he admitted to Page Six. “I didn’t get the part, OK, and I’ve never worked with Steven Spielberg, and I grant you that I never will work with Steven Spielberg, and I never learned how to make a cake.”
As for Spielberg, he confirmed that kitchen credentials were a key part of his process for determining who his prospective actors really were when their attention was focused somewhere other than the script. “I found the best way to cast was to make people comfortable,” he explained. “I couldn’t think of any better way to make them comfortable than to have a bunch of flour on a table and eggs to be beaten and dough to be kneaded and frosting to be laid on.”
The Raiders team “baked every day, five days a week, for over 14 weeks of casting” when whittling down the contenders, with his curious methods allowing his potential stars “to let their hair down and be a little looser.” Sadly, no footage exists of Ford wearing an apron and painstakingly constructing a sponge, or if it does, he’s done a phenomenal job of having it suppressed for over 40 years. As a former carpenter, though, it was already well-established that he was good with his hands.
