In 1981, Steven Spielberg created an incredible blockbuster with Raiders of the Lost Ark, which helped lead actor Harrison Ford reach new heights in the Hollywood sky after Star Wars. Before Spielberg and Ford teamed up again for the sequels to the adventure series, the Indiana Jones star was supposed to be in front of the camera one more time for the master director.
Ford actually shot a scene for Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi classic ET – The Extra-Terrestrial. However, this was later cut out by the director for good reason.
Harrison Ford played the school principal in Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi classic ET
After the alien ET and 10-year-old Elliot (Henry Thomas) develop a supernatural friendship, the boy frees a dozen frogs from captivity at his school. What we never got to see in the final cut of the film is that Elliot then receives a lecture from the school principal. This school principal was played by none other than, you guessed it, Harrison Ford.
In the scene, Ford can only be seen in silhouette from behind, while he can be recognized primarily by his distinctive voice. The “joke” was to have Ford embody a character in the scene contrary to his other well-known roles in Indiana Jones or Star Wars – buttoned-up and condescending.
Over time, the deleted scene made it to the vastness of the Internet, so that we can now watch it – albeit in poor quality – like in this video on YouTube:
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Why was Harrison Ford cut from ET?
Harrison Ford was a mega-star in the 1980s and would certainly have generated a lot of additional attention for Spielberg’s sci-fi flick. So why was his scene cut from the film? The answer may lie precisely in this point: Harrison Ford simply was too famous.
Spielberg cast mostly unknown actors for ET, fearing that Harrison Ford’s presence would be too distracting to the audience, which would have done the film more harm than good. So he decided to use the rather insignificant for the plot and A scene that stands out from the film in terms of its aesthetics to be cut out again later.
Harrison Ford’s cameo was memorable for at least one person: Elliot actor Henry Thomas. He told Entertainment Weekly in 2017: “When I Steven [Spielberg] When I met him, the first thing I said was, ‘I love Raiders of the Lost Ark and my hero is Harrison Ford.’ I was excited to meet Steven, hoping to meet Harrison.”
You can currently stream ET with a subscription on Amazon Prime Video and Magenta TV.
A thematically similar article was previously published on our sister site Filmstarts.