RAIDERS OF THE LAST ARK Actress Karen Allen Talks Casting Process and How When She Was Cast, There Was No Indy

It’s already well known that Harrison Ford was cast as Indian Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark at the last minute. He joined the project three weeks before it started shooting. There were a few other actors who tested, such as Tom Selleck, Sam Elliott, and Jeff Bridges.

Marion actor Karen Allen recently talked to SFX Magazin/Games Radar about the casting process of the film and how when she joined, there was still no actor set to play Indy. She explains:

"By the time I met Steven [Spielberg] and he wanted me to come out to Los Angeles and do a screen test, Tom Selleck had fallen out of the picture. I guess they picked up his option for Magnum PI and they wouldn’t let him out to do the film. And so they had no Indy and no Marion. They brought me out and I tested with Tim Matheson, who had been in Animal House with me, and with an actor named John Shea, who I knew a little bit just from the New York acting world. I’ve come to know that Sam Elliott tested, Jeff Bridges tested. 

She went to say that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were looking at a ton of actors before Ford was cast:

“At a certain point I was cast as Marion and we had no Indy, and they were meeting with and looking at an awful lot of actors. I’m sure that Harrison had occurred to them but I think they were probably thinking well, he’s playing Han Solo, and maybe for him to be doing two of those multi-film roles was not going to be a good thing. But of course it turned out okay! Turned out he was really good as both Han Solo and Indiana Jones."

Yeah, I can’t imagine anyone else in the role of Indiana Jones. It had to be Harrison Ford! We will get to see Ford play the character one last time in the fifth installment of the franchise, which is currently in production.