Harrison Ford only had good things to say about composer John Williams, who is up for the 54th Academy Award of his career for his work on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. But his compositions are so good, Ford says, they follow him “everywhere.”
Speaking to Variety in a profile of the famed composer, Ford revealed his doctors once played the Indiana Jones theme song during a rather inopportune time.
“As I often remind John, his music follows me everywhere I go — literally,” Ford said. “When I had my last colonoscopy, they were playing it on the operating room speakers.”
The film score Williams composed for Raiders of the Lost Ark, which debuted “The Raiders March,” also received an Oscar nomination in 1981, though it lost to Chariots of Fire that year.
Ford has long joked about being haunted by “The Raiders March” in his day-to-day life. While giving a speech in honor of Williams in 2016, Ford joked about hearing “that damn music” almost everywhere – including the operating room.
“That damn music follows me everywhere. They play it every time I walk on stage, every time I walk off a stage. It was playing in the operating room when I went in for my colonoscopy,” he said, per E! News.
“I was walking down a crowded street in New York a couple of months ago and there was a big fire truck stuck in traffic that I passed in the opposite direction,” he recalled. “Some guy leaned out of the cab and gave me one of those [Ford makes a groaning noise]. By the time I got to the end of the truck that music was blaring out of the loud speakers in the truck!”
He added, “To play a character graced by John’s music, of course, is a real gift. Music is the spice, it’s the salt and pepper in every film recipe that brings the whole thing together.”
Williams has scored all five Indiana Jones films, as well as a number of classics, including Jaws, Star Wars, Schindler’s List, and many more.
He most recently worked on Dial of Destiny, for which he spontaneously decided to write a theme song for Phoebe Waller-Bridge‘s character Helena Shaw, titled “Helena’s Theme,” earning the film its only Academy Award nomination.
Variety reports that this 54th nomination is “the most ever for someone not named Walt Disney, and thus the biggest tally for any living person — and any nonproducer, period.”