Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the most iconic action movies ever made. It cemented Harrison Ford as a movie star and further guaranteed that Steven Spielberg would be one of the greatest directors of all time. It also made movie history in another small, but important way by launching Alfred Molina's career.
The man who would go on to star as Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2 and get nominated for three BAFTAs appeared in front of the camera for the first time in his career in a small role in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Molina is only in the movie for a few minutes, but apparently his friends all thought his role was much bigger because he was all over the movie’s trailers. Speaking on the Still Here podcast, Molina said…
The irony is, of course, that my character gets his within seven minutes or something. But because that little portion of the movie had nothing to do with the rest of the film, they mined that seven minutes for all the trailers. So it was me and Harrison [Ford] all over the trailers. [Laughs] So people are kind of calling me and saying, 'Fred, you got this great big part in this movie!' I said, ‘No, no, no. If you go to the bathroom, you're gonna miss me. Make sure you get your popcorn early.
While studios didn't take quite the same stance to prevent spoilers as they do today, obviously nobody wanted to give too much of Raiders of the Lost Ark away. Luckily, the entire opening sequence is only about introducing the character of Indiana Jones, and doesn't impact the main plot, so it could be used to promote the film without worry.
It’s certainly true that it’s easy to miss Alfred Molina in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s also easy to not even realize that it is Molina in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The actor wasn’t famous when he made the movie, so if you saw it when it first came out, and then saw Molina again later after he’d made a bigger name for himself, it would be easy to not even remember you’d seen him before.
The actor says that’s happened with a lot of people who discovered his first role only after seeing some of Alfred Molina's best movies, even if they’d seen Raiders before. New people also discover the Indiana Jones movies every day. It may not have been a large role, but it was a memorable one in one of the most influential movies of all time. Of the part, now Molina simply says…
It was a treat, it was a delight. It was an honor to be in it. For a young actor, for his first film, it was a blessing, absolute blessing.
It’s hard to see it as anything but that. There aren’t many who can say they started their career in a Steven Spielberg movie, and then actually went up from there. Alfred Molina has built a career that includes award-winning drama and blockbuster comic book movies, and he’s received critical praise the entire time. His friends may not have understood how small his Raiders of the Lost Ark role was, but he may not have understood quite how big it would be.
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