Tom Selleck should have been Indiana Jones before Harrison Ford, confirms Steven Spielberg

Harrison Ford and Indiana Jones are one and the same. However, according to the director of the saga, the famous adventurer almost had a completely different face… with a big mustache!

Would he have had to shave his iconic mustache for the occasion?

We will never know… But Tom Selleck was indeed on the verge of becoming the most famous archaeologist in the world.

Podcast guest IMO (with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson), Steven Spielberg returned to one of the biggest “what if?” of the history of cinema. Because before even thinking about Harrison Ford, the director and George Lucas had found their Indiana Jones.

“George Lucas and I both discovered and decided that Tom Selleck should play Indiana Jones“, says Spielberg about the Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981. The actor had actually passed a very convincing audition:

“He came, he read the role. He was good. His essay was really good. I loved it.”

But fate will decide otherwise, because of the managers of a television channel. Spielberg explains:

“We wanted Tom. We gave him the role. But he had, without us knowing it, a current contract with CBS for the series Magnum. When they learned we wanted Tom, they immediately started production on Magnum., thus preventing him from starring in Indiana Jones.”

A missed opportunity that Tom Selleck has always put into perspective. As early as 1997, he declared: “To be honest, this whole thing embarrasses me a little bit today, because there’s no other Indiana Jones than Harrison Ford. He’s inseparable from this role. It’s his accomplishment. I just hope Harrison doesn’t think I’m walking around saying, ‘I was the first choice for Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

Finally, it was after discovering images of The Empire Strikes Back that Spielberg finds his replacement. We are at the beginning of 1980. George Lucas shows him the edit of his film which is about to be released in theaters. Seduced by the charisma of Harrison Ford in the role of Han Solo, the director decided to give him the hat and whip of Indiana Jones, to lead Raiders of the Lost Arkwhich will be released in cinemas a year later…

To know what Tom Selleck’s version of Indiana Jones might have looked like, just watch the wink-wink episode of Magnum“In Search of Lost Art” (photo above), broadcast during the eighth and final season of the show…