There’s a legendary story out there that the whole cast and crew shooting the Cairo-set scenes in Tunisia got really sick from food poisoning, except for Spielberg as he didn’t eat any of the local food that everyone else was having. She was his mentor’s daughter and it was dangerous for him to chat in that direction, so he may just have left and broke her heart. It may have been those very things that drove him out of there, that somehow there was this temptation to have a romance with Marian but she was 16. I don’t think it was anything because my father was there and was my father’s student. She was 16 and he was probably the first person she ever had a crush on. I do think she was very much in love with him or had a crush on him. I don’t think that there was a major romance between them. Was there a romance between Indy and Marion when he was studying under Abner Ravenwood? Who was her mother? How old was she when they came to Nepal? Where was she born? I wrote this 40something years ago, I think I have a copy of it somewhere, but I did create a backstory for her. I feel like there are these basic things that we all know about ourselves, it seems only right that my work as an actor is to ask those questions of a character that I don’t know very much about. Did this help you get into character, and what other elements of Marion’s backstory did you envision? I’ve read that after you received the script, you came up with a backstory for Marion to fill in some of the blanks. I didn’t have a very established career at that point, so the idea of doing a screen test was thrilling to me. So, I saw no harm in doing a screen test. I’ve read that a lot of women Steven was interested in refused to do a screen test and that was a way to eliminate people. Other than those four, I don’t know who else auditioned for Indy but I know an awful lot of women who auditioned for Marion. I did the auditions with them and since discovered that Sam Elliot and Jeff Bridges auditioned. John Shea and I flew from New York together on the same plane to do a screen test, and Tim Matheson was in Los Angeles but I had worked with him just a couple of years before in “Animal House,” so we were pals. I auditioned with Tim Matheson and John Shea. I only know that way after the fact because I sat with him many years later and he told me how heartbroken he was. They wouldn’t let him out of his contract, and so he was heartbroken. Tom Selleck had been cast, and then it turned out “Magnum P.I.” got picked up. I know that you auditioned with two other actors who were up for the role of Indiana Jones, was one of those actors Tom Selleck? I always look for characters who have that kind of inner strength because it’s just so interesting to play. So to have a role like this come my way was just such an exciting event. We kind of fell apart culturally, and women became more like objects in films. And then, I don’t know what happened in the ’50s and ’60s. You had incredible actresses - Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Ingrid Bergman and Katharine Hepburn - who portrayed these tough, wonderful characters. At the time, I had grown up with a lot of those beautiful 40s films. This man who broke her heart comes in and she punches him in the jaw, I mean, it was just such a wonderful and colorful introduction to a woman. When they sent me this scene from The Raven bar to audition with, I just fell in love with the character. How did it feel to play such a strong female character, especially when those kind of roles were more rare at the time? Your character, Marion Ravenwood, is this resilient woman who is unintimidated by men and is able to take care of herself when the situation demands it.
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