Fleabag star joins Indiana Jones sequel

LOS ANGELES • Fleabag (2016 to 2019) actress and creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge will star alongside Harrison Ford in the new Indiana Jones movie due to hit screens next year, Lucasfilm said last Friday.

The series' fifth instalment, to be directed by James Mangold, has been billed as Ford's final film as the hero archaeologist. It will feature a "dream team of all-time great film-makers" including producers Steven Spielberg - who was initially due to direct - and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, said Mangold, 57, in a statement.

"When you add Phoebe, a dazzling actor, brilliant creative voice and the chemistry she will undoubtedly bring to our set, I can't help but feel as lucky as Indiana Jones himself," the director of Ford V Ferrari (2019) added.

The casting caps a remarkable rise for British actress-writer Waller-Bridge, 35, who won multiple Emmys for Fleabag, the smash-hit television adaptation of her one-woman show about a disillusioned young singleton in London.

Waller-Bridge also co-wrote spy thriller Killing Eve (2018 to present) and the upcoming, pandemic-delayed James Bond film, No Time To Die.

She has worked with Lucasfilm before, playing acerbic droid L3-37 in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018).

The fifth Indiana Jones film has been in production for years, with Lucasfilm parent company Disney confirming Ford's return at an investor day in December.

Ford, 78, first picked up the adventurer's signature hat and whip in Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981) just a few years after achieving global fame as Han Solo in the original Star Wars film (1977).

Three years later, Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom (1984) followed. In 1989, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade hit theatres, with the late Sean Connery playing Indy's father.

Nearly 20 years later, Ford starred in the fourth film, Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008), which had box-office success but was critically panned.

Legendary composer John Williams, who created Indy's famous theme, will return to score the film, which is due out in July next year.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE