Harrison Ford confused by Spielberg’s initial costume pitch

You call this fashion?

In an interview with GQ magazine, Harrison Ford recalled his initial confusion over the outfit he’d be expected to wear as Indiana Jones, back when Steven Spielberg’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) was still in the development phase.

“It was presented to me as an aspect of character in the first film,” Ford said. “My questions about it were many. Why am I wearing a leather jacket in the jungle? Isn’t it hot here? Why am I carrying a whip? What am I going to do with a f—ing whip? I’m going to whip people?”

That leather jacket, bullwhip and Indy’s pinch-front fedora would soon find a permanent place in Hollywood costume history — similar to the scars Ford sustained from stapling the hat to his head so it wouldn’t fly off during action scenes.

Ford donned the get-up for one last time in the fifth and final film of the franchise, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.”

The man who brought Indiana Jones to life has received praise for stepping back into the character as an octogenarian, but the film otherwise received mixed reviews, and has been struggling at the box office.

The actor made it no secret throughout the film’s press tour that embracing Indy’s age, and his own, is the point of the film.

“I wanted to make a film about the end of his life,” Ford told GQ. “I wanted to see all of the development of his personality that we’ve seen. And then I wanted to see him after the passage of the 15 years that actually exists between the last film that we did and this one.”

“I’m an older man. I would like the audience to appreciate that in the context of his life, and to see what effect time has on the character,” he said.