One is an old flame, the other an ice queen - Karen Allen and Cate Blanchett are the gals making sure the new Indiana Jones movie isn't just a boy's own blockbuster
KEY POINTS:
In January 2007, Karen Allen was standing in a small fashion studio she built in her home hidden among the lush, quiet hills of south-west Massachusetts when the phone rang.
"Hi Karen, it's Steven Spielberg," the voice on the line casually said.
Allen almost dropped the phone.
"The call was completely out of the blue," Allen recalls. It had been years since she chatted with the Oscar-winning director.
"Steven said 'I guess you know why I'm calling'."
"I said: 'No, I have no idea'.
"He said: 'Haven't you been watching TV?'.
"I said: 'No, I haven't had the TV on for the past few days'.
"Steven said: 'We've announced we're going to make the movie and we've written a wonderful role for you'.
"I said: 'Fantastic'. I was blown away."
The movie Spielberg was talking about was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the long-awaited Indiana Jones sequel and a film that many, including Allen, thought might never be made after countless rumours and false starts. Allen starred alongside Harrison Ford in the original film from the Indiana Jones adventure franchise, 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark, directed by Spielberg and co-written by George Lucas.
The actress played Jones' former girlfriend, the big-drinking adventurer, Marion Ravenwood.
"She was a very wonderfully written character. How can you go wrong when you meet a woman in a bar in Nepal and she's drinking men under the table, yelling at large men in Nepalese and ordering them out of the bar, and when she first sets eyes on Indiana Jones, she socks him in the jaw? It's a great introduction to the character, and it's hard to imagine she's not going to win a lot of fans."
The actress' first movie role was in a cheap, low class 1978 comedy she thought would be quickly forgotten - Animal House, co-starring John Belushi. Animal House became a cult classic and launched Allen's acting career.
But, after the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark and performances in 1984's John Carpenter-directed Starman and 1988's Scrooged, Allen switched her focus to stage roles on Broadway.
Ravenwood was left out of the two sequels, 1984's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Director Steven Spielberg's future wife, Kate Capshaw, became the archaeologist's love interest in Temple of Doom - Allen's Marion could not have appeared in that one, since it took place earlier than Raiders, which marked the first time she had seen Indy in a decade.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade took place after Raiders, and Allen joked that "I guess I could have been in that one, but they decided to go with Sean Connery," who played Indy's estranged dad.
After the aborted attempts over almost two decades to resurrect the franchise, Spielberg and Lucas finally agreed on a script.
Meanwhile, Allen had moved on with her life.
When her son, Nicholas, was born in 1990 he became her priority and they retreated to Massachusetts.
That is where Allen started her fashion design business, making cashmere jumpers and scarves.
"I just felt at a certain point I wanted to empower myself and do something that would create a fascinating day to day life and then if a wonderful film or role in a play came along, I could do it too," Allen said.
That phone call from Spielberg turned her world upside down. He swore Allen to secrecy - the plan was to keep her role a surprise for Indiana Jones fans.
The first time they wanted the audience to realise her character had been reprised was when Marion Ravenwood appeared on screen. But Spielberg and Lucas put Allen out of her agony three weeks into the shoot when they decided to reveal at the Mecca for comic book fans, the annual ComicCon conference in San Diego, that Marion Ravenwood was being reprised.
It was also a relief for Allen to return to the Indiana Jones set and work with Ford.
In Raiders of the Lost Ark Allen thought she was making a Casablanca-type film, not a blockbuster adventure popcorn flick. This time around she was prepared. "It was terrific to work with Harrison again," she said.
"In the first film, I felt like I spent most of the film trying to get to know him. I felt like a fish out of water because it was not a genre I wasused to."
In the new film, Jones and Ravenwood are thrust back together.
"They kind of pick up from where they left off. A few bumpy roads have passed between them since then that they have to work out with each other."
Allen is also prepared for her recent life as a semi-anonymous mother and fashion designer to end as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens worldwide.
Although, after years away from Hollywood, the actress is still surprised by fans who come up to her on the street or in supermarkets.
And what about the speculation that Indy's new young sidekick, played by Shia LaBeouf, is the love child of Indy and Marion?
"You'll have to wait and see."
LOWDOWN
Who: Karen Allen and Cate Blanchett, co-stars in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
When: Opens at cinemas today
- AP, REUTERS
