If you love adventure, archaeology and Harrison Ford, we’ve got good news! Here at 15 adventurous facts all about Indy and the classic Indiana Jones films! Find out who Indiana Jones was named after, which star was discovered by accident, and what important prop an elephant ate on set…And if you liked these facts, check out more film facts here! What about these mind-bending Back to the Future facts? Or how about some epic Hunger Games facts? Or check out these incredible Star Wars facts!

1. Indiana Jones Really Was Named After The Dog

Henry Jones Snr jokes that Indiana ‘is a dog’s name’, and he’s right! The name originally came from two sources – a film where Steve McQueen played ‘Nevada Smith’, giving George Lucas the inspiration to name the character after a state, and Lucas’ dog, Indiana!

2. Harrison Ford Wasn’t First Choice For Indy

Lots of actors were considered for the role, including Steve Martin, Jack Nicholson and George Lucas’ first choice, Tom Selleck, who was famous for the tv show Magnum, P.I. He even did a screen test, but had to drop out for scheduling reasons, and Harrison Ford stepped into the role that is now one of his most iconic.

3. Raiders Of the Lost Ark Was a Difficult Shoot

Raiders of the Lost Ark is now a classic, but considering how haphazard the shoot was, it’s lucky it got made at all! Harrison Ford shattered a knee, the crew got dysentery, and Harrison Ford was lucky to outrun the 300 pound boulder that chases him through a tunnel -even Steven Spielberg admitted it was a stupid stunt! As well as this, actor Alfred Molina had to deal with being covered in 30 real tarantulas for the infamous temple scene at the beginning of the film! He didn’t have to pretend to be scared!

4. Alfred Molina Still Gets His Lines Shouted at Him!

Even decades later, British actor Alfred Molina (who played Satipo, the guide with Indy at the start of Raiders) says that he still gets his famous line – ‘You throw me the idol, I throw you the whip!’ yelled at him by fans in the street! That’s staying power!

5. If You Look Carefully, You Can See A Snake Special Effects Failure

In Raiders, Indy and Marion are trapped in an underground tomb with hundreds of wild snakes- Indy’s biggest fear! But he needn’t have been too worried; if you look very closely at the scene, you can see the reflection from a pane of glass separating the actors from the animals – phew!

6. Indy Fights One Guy Four Times

In any scene in the original movies where Indy is up against a much larger guy, that guy is played by actor and stunt man Pat Roach. Roach was a British wrestler who stood at 6ft 5, and appears as a huge sherpa, a plane mechanic, a Thuggee and a pilot in a deleted scene. He died in 2004, before he could appear in any of the newer films.

7. Ke Huy Quan Was Discovered by Accident

Ke Huy Quan, who plays Indy’s companion Short Round in Temple of Doom was actually only cast because his older brother came in to audition. Quan wasn’t nervous to audition for Spielberg, because he didn’t know who he was! He had never seen any of Spielberg’s films, and he didn’t know who Harrison Ford was either!

8. Harrison Ford and Sean Connery Only Had a 12 Year Age Gap

Despite playing father and son, Harrison Ford and Sean Connery are only 12 years apart in real life! Connery’s hair beard had already gone white and he’d gone bald, which helped him look older!

9. An Elephant Ate A Priceless Costume on Temple of Doom

Actress Kate Capshaw wore a priceless dress made with vintage sequins for her part in the film as nightclub singer Willie. In one scene, Willie hangs the dress (made by legendary costume designer Anthony Powell) up to dry in the jungle…at which point an elephant on set started eating it! The dress was rescued, but still had to be fixed!

10. The Third Film Could Have Been Very Different…

In early drafts of Last Crusade, the plot is set in a haunted Scottish castle. Steven Spielberg didn’t want to do another ghost movie after Poltergeist, so the idea was scrapped – but you can still hear Indy doing a questionable Scottish accent in one scene!

11. The Venice Catacomb Scene Features 2,000 Rats!

The rats Indy and Elsa encounter in the tunnels beneath Venice are very real – they were bred especially for the film! Real rats were used for all shots – except the ones were a fire starts, where they were replaced with mechanical models!

12. Last Crusade Boosted Visits to Petra

The Treasury in Petra, Jordan was used an the location for the final scenes of the film, where Indy and the Nazis race to get to the Holy Grail first. After the film came out, visits to Petra were boosted by up to a million people a year! And that’s not the only interesting link with Petra – in October 2024, a tomb ‘full of skeletons’ was found under the Treasury – maybe a real life Indiana Jones has been there after all!

13. Harrison Ford Performed His Own Stunts in Crystal Skull

These included getting trapped in quicksand, jumping onto a tank and, of course, punching bad guys. He was in his 60s at the time – not bad at all!

14. Glasgow Stands in For New York in Dial of Destiny

The scenes of a parade in New York at the beginning of Dial of Destiny are not New York at all – they’re Scotland! Up to a mile of Glasgow was shut down and dressed with old cars, posters and shop fronts to mimic 1960s New York. And it’s not the only time Glasgow has doubled as an American city – it’s also showed up in World War Z, Cloud Atlas and The Dark Night Rises!

15. It’s An Award Winning Franchise

In total, the Indiana Jones films have won six Oscars ( and been nominated for 13 Oscars in total. It also grossed nearly $1 billion dollars worldwide since the first film, and spawned a hugely popular TV series, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, starring Sean Patrick Flannery.