ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What was it like being on-set again with all of them?
KAREN ALLEN: Because the first film has been so celebrated, it feels like you're coming home. And I have to say, Steven was just so welcoming to me, in the sense of making me feel as though they were so incredibly delighted to have me back in the fold. It just felt so joyous. ''We get to do this again!'' The first day I was shooting with Harrison, we were given a particularly challenging bit of business to do on a moving truck. The truck is kind of ambling along and we're trying to throw ourselves through this little opening, and we can't help but slam elbows into hard metal and kneecaps into hard metal. We were just like, ''Aaaaaaah,'' y'know? We're putting on pads and hoping we hit the pads instead of hitting some bruisable part of our bodies. I just remember, the very first day, kind of looking up at him. I was so glad I was there and so glad I was working with him again. It felt even better than the first time. Because I felt more at ease with myself, and he seemed more at ease and happy.... But it's true with Steven too. Steven, I felt, was so much more relaxed, and so much more enjoying the day to day of being there on the set. I think the first time around, it was all a little intense.
How so?
[On Raiders] I'd never done a film of that nature before. Coming out of doing theater and a handful of smaller relationship-type films, I didn't know anything about being on big sets like this and doing action sequences, where you'd spend an entire week, day after day after day, looking up and screaming with dirt falling into your eyes and up your nose and into your mouth. I found myself sometimes thinking, What am I doing? What kind of acting is this? I really didn't have a place where I felt very secure, that I knew what I was doing.... Harrison came into it having done the two Star Wars films [up to that point], so he had some experience in this area. But I was really a duck out of water.
How does it feel to have so much attention from fans now?
Everybody here [in the western Massachusetts town where she lives] knows me, and has known me for a long time. So the kind of attention I'd love, of course, is people being interested in asking me to do other films. At my age, because I'm in my 50s, the roles are just few and far between. And I come from a generation of wonderful actresses. There's a lot of really extraordinary actresses my age, and there just aren't enough interesting roles to go around. I often very much bemoan the fact that there are so many of my peers who I never see any more in films. And I include myself in that list.
Did you make a conscious decision to leave L.A., or did it just sort of happen?
Once my son was born in 1990, it really became a huge choice to choose to go off to do a film. That put him in a situation where for 12 hours or 14 hours a day, he was going to have to be with a babysitter, off the set somewhere. They end up being these life choices, and you don't realize how complicated they can be until they're upon you. My son was born somewhat late in my life and I just found myself really feeling like I didn't want to miss out on being a parent and being with him, and not wanting a situation where I was constantly pulled back and forth between being present, and having all these other pressures and considerations. And I imagine that was happening at the same time that the kind of really exciting, interesting roles started kind of simultaneously falling away, or going to younger actors. So it didn't feel like I was saying no to fantastic things. It just felt like it was kind of a natural time to put my focus elsewhere.
More Indiana Jones:
Harrison Ford: The EW Q&A
Shia LaBeouf: The EW Q&A
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