Harrison Ford staples Indiana Jones hat to his head in resurfaced footage: ‘You do what you need to do’

Actor secured his character’s pinch-front fedora to his head so it would stay in place during action scenes

Harrison Ford has addressed archival footage that shows him stapling his Indiana Jones hat to his head during production for the first 1981 film, Raiders of the Lost Ark.

When asked about the “incredible” clip in a new video interview with GQ, the 80-year-old actor nonchalantly replied: “You do what you need to do.”

Brushing aside the front of his hair, he noted: “I still have the [scar].”

In the behind-the-scenes video, Ford can be seen unflinchingly securing his archaeologist’s iconic pinch-front fedora to his forehead with three staples before saying: “That should do it.”

The actor, who has portrayed the beloved character across all five of the films, stapled the hat to his head to prevent it from flying off while filming action scenes.

Ford went on to discuss the rest of Indy’s costume – a leather jacket and a bullwhip – saying that “it was presented to me as an aspect of character in the first film”.

“My questions about it were many,” he recalled. “Why am I wearing a leather jacket in the jungle? Isn’t it hot here? Why am I carrying a whip? What am I going to do with a f***ing whip? I’m going to whip people?”

The Star Wars actor remembers being told that the getup was “an evocation of a time, a period. A reflection of movies past”.

“I said ‘OK’, and that makes it my own,” Ford explained.

Ford reprises his legendary role for the final time in the film series’s fifth instalment, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

In it, his titular daredevil archaeologist must race against time to retrieve a magical dial with the ability to change the course of history.

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Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Mads Mikkelsen make their Indiana Jones debut, respectively, as Indy’s goddaughter Helena Shaw and the dastardly ex-Nazi Jürgen Voller.

Since the movie’s cinematic release in June, several viewers have been left stumped by a “major” plot hole.

In a three-star review of the film for The Independent, Geoffrey Macnab wrote: “Tonally, the film wavers. It pulls in too many different directions at once. On the one hand, this is an exercise in affectionate nostalgia.

“On the other, like its predecessors, it’s an old-fashioned matinee adventure in which characterisation is deliberately broad. Certain episodes are knowing and ironic, while others seem painfully naive.”

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is out in cinemas now.