The rise of Phoebe Waller-Bridge has been exceptional to behold. After smashing the fourth wall and grabbing the world’s consideration with Fleabag, then rejuvenating the small-screen spy drama with Killing Eve, she’s blasted off to a galaxy far, distant in android kind in Solo: A Star Wars Story, hosted SNL, and brushed up 007’s dialogue in No Time To Die. Subsequent cease: Indiana Jones 5, the place she’ll play a pivotal half in Harrison Ford’s remaining fedora-topped outing. In Indy’s 1969-set journey, she enters the fray as Helena – none aside from Henry Jones Jr’s goddaughter.
“She’s a thriller and a surprise,” Waller-Bridge tells Empire, teasing her largely-under-wraps function. In reality, loads of adjectives abound when describing Helena. In response to incoming director James Mangold, she’s “slippery, charming, the woman subsequent door, a grifter”. Per Harrison Ford himself, she’s “a pioneer in moral accounting”. And for the actor, all of it sprang from a dialog with legendary producer Kathleen Kennedy. “Kathy was in London and requested to have dinner with me, and casually talked about this,” remembers Waller-Bridge. “I instantly ordered ten bottles of wine. Then it was the quickest I’ve ever learn a script; I got here out of a form of haze afterwards. I simply couldn’t consider how a lot enjoyable I had and the way moved I used to be by it. After which I had a Zoom and screamed, ‘YES!’ at all of them.”
For Mangold, a key reference level for Waller-Bridge in bringing Helena to life was Barbara Stanwyck’s function in 1941 screwball comedy The Girl Eve (“I used to be like, ‘Oh yeah, certain, I’ll simply do my Barbara Stanwyck’,” laughs Waller-Bridge. “IT’S AN IMPOSSIBLE FEAT.”) However amongst all of the conning and the comedy additionally got here the possibility to leap into the sort of huge motion set-piece that the Indiana Jones films do finest. “Actually, I simply cherished it,” she says. “While you’re taking part in a personality who throws herself on the again of a automobile, there’s no appearing round that. You simply should bloody do it.” The thriller and surprise of Helena is about to unfold.
For Empire’s full world-exclusive Indiana Jones 5 cowl story, search out the difficulty – filled with the very first photographs and interviews, talking to Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Shaunette Renée Wilson, Boyd Holbrook, James Mangold, Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Simon Emanuel – when it hits newsstands on Thursday 24 November. Pre-order a duplicate on-line right here. Indiana Jones 5 involves UK cinemas on 30 June 2023.
