Once a group of terrorists led by Gary Oldman (doing his best hammy European villain accent) lays siege to the titular aircraft in “Air Force One,” it’s pretty much a non-stop sprint for Ford’s President James Marshall, right up until a climax that features some of the most delightfully bad visual effects involving an airplane this side of “Money Plane.” As such, when Marlowe’s script called for Marshall to briefly pause and collect himself, Ford knew it had to go. Marlowe regaled the anecdote to Syfy, explaining:
“I had something in the script about, ‘[Marshall] sits down for a moment just to gather himself.’ And [Ford] said, ‘Look, I’m not going to sit down. I appreciate your writing that, but I feel like my family is in crisis and I can’t sit down until it’s over.’ He also said something about his character that I really enjoy, because he knows who he is as an actor, and he knows how audiences respond to him. He said, ‘People don’t come to the movies to see me beat up other people. They come to the movie to see me get beaten up and then get up again. So let’s make sure that we’re capturing that when we do this.'”
Ford’s never forgotten that, either. Even in his 80s, the actor was still getting knocked about in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” Memorably, he declared his retirement as the titular crusading archeologist at 2022’s D23 by announcing, “This is it. I will not fall down for you again.” Having spent an additional two and a half decades after “Air Force One” falling down every which way, it’s high past time he took a moment to gather himself for real.