Tough Guy

''Yeah,'' he replies. ''What else is there to do? I can't talk to girls, we haven't got any girls on this set!'' (''This movie is man city,'' confirms Madsen cheerfully. Although Ford's joking, of course. He has been dating Ally McBeal's Calista Flockhart for four years and speaks of her very fondly. He'd love to do a romantic comedy with her someday, he says, except that he knows he would ''take a lot of s---'' for being so much older than her. She's 41.)

On the shoot, Ford consults incessantly and clashes occasionally with his director, Wimbledon's Richard Loncraine. ''What's it like between Harrison and me?'' asks Loncraine, a genial, almost boyish 59-year-old with salt-and-pepper hair. ''Harrison says what he wants and I do it!'' He laughs heartily. ''No, not quite. Harrison's a handful, but he's a very, very good handful. He knows what he wants and what he thinks should be done. But he's very polite, and he has a sense of humor. I like him very much, and I think he's not entirely unhappy with me. I think you'd know if he didn't like you.''

On the subject of Loncraine, Ford is more succinct: ''I don't know whether to f---ing kill him or to marry him!''

He elaborates. ''Richard's been working with me really hard on this movie for five or six months. We've gone through a lot of disagreement and a lot of agreement,'' Ford insists. ''It's like being married. Sometimes it's bumptious, sometimes it's charm, and if it can't be charm, then it's gonna be'' — and suddenly he looks really angry, as if he's growling at Gary Oldman in Air Force One — ''f---ing you do the dishes! You clean up this s---! You made it!''

If he sounds scary, he is (slightly), but at the same time, Ford's kind of hilarious, too, in his own gonzo way. ''He's a very funny man,'' agrees Bettany. ''And incredibly cruel. His humor is just — he's relentless with it. I love it! We've had a ball. We're endlessly mocking each other. I call him 'Walter Matthau' when he's grumpy.''

But anyone excited for another Indiana Jones movie should take heart: This Grumpy Old Man's not a geezer yet. Just before lunch one day in Kamloops, Bettany has Ford by the lapels for a difficult scene. They're about to shoot a bit where Bettany throws Ford through a cabin window. ''Good luck,'' Bettany says to him just before action. ''Thank you,'' Ford replies. ''Richard!'' Ford calls out to his director. ''We're going to count our own time.'' Bettany says, ''One...'' ''Let me count,'' Ford insists. So he counts, cameras rolling, and on three, Bettany heaves him through the window headfirst. Ford's legs disappear; he lands on the porch off camera with a thud. After the cut, Bettany pokes his head through the smashed window and peers down. Is Ford okay? He is. The crew claps. Then something wonderful happens. The window is adjacent to a door. The door is ajar. But instead, Ford stands up, sticks one leg through the window, then the other, and pulls himself back into the room through the window — even though there's an open door right there. There's nothing on Ford's face to suggest that he's aware this is unusual. He's only wondering about the shot. Ford coolly addresses the room: ''Did it look okay?''