Big Shiny Robot! is proud to continue its coverage of Dragon*con, and I am thrilled to share another Sean Patrick Flanery panel with you.
On Saturday morning, one of the panel rooms filled with people eager to hear Flanery talk about The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Though the show has been off the air for a long time, it has lived on in VHS and DVD formats as well as novel and comic book adaptations. And, Indiana Jones remains one of the most iconic characters ever. People love Indy (in spite of what they thought of Crystal Skull).
Flanery entered the room and began talking without preamble or a moderator. He said that, “Every door that’s open to me today was opened by George Lucas back in 1990. It was arguably the best job I ever had. I rode a horse to lunch every day.” He also added, “I’ve never made less money for acting in my life, and I’ve never had more fun than on Young Indiana Jones.” The show allowed him to travel and meet new people, but he didn’t even own a passport when Lucas hired him for the role.
Then he began taking questions from the audience, and the first person wanted to know if Flanery ever thought about giving up acting. His response: “Nope, not even close . . . if you’re happy doing something, you do it so much better than if you’re miserable,” and he loves acting. He left Texas and moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career, and he worked at TGI Friday’s while he followed his dream. He explained that “a dream is something you can’t give up on. You don’t have an option,” and that some people don’t know what a dream is; they just think something may be really neat to pursue.
“I’ve never really been a celebrity,” he continued. “I’ve been a working actor.” This is evident by how few people seem to know who he is when I mention him, but he’s been in over fifty movies and at least four different television series. You may not know who he is, but chances are you’ve seen him on screen.
When asked about his favorite location during the filming of Young Indy, he answered with Prague, Czechoslovakia. He spoke of the beautiful, ornate buildings and how he thought, “they must sell old books in here . . . or artifacts, but then you’re like, Big Mac? Supersize it for 29 korunas.” It seems that in Prague, even McDonald’s is an architectural wonder.
Another question was whether he ever had the opportunity to meet Harrison Ford, who appeared in the bookends of Young Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Blues. Unfortunately, Ford filmed those scenes in the United States while Flanery was shooting overseas, and the two have yet to meet.
His favorite actor that he’s ever worked with? “I gotta say, the Albert Schweitzer episode . . . Friedrich von Thun, he’s a German actor and . . . in Germany he’s like Robert De Niro . . . this guy was solid . . . a wealth of information.” Then he added that for having a good time on set, his choice would be Boondock Saints co-star Norman Reedus.
When preparing for the role of Young Indy, he watched the original movies with Harrison Ford again to study the physicality of the character and how he cracked his whip and donned his trademark fedora. He compared the opening 30 minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark to the opening 30 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, saying, “Those are two of the best opening 30 minutes that I have knowledge of.” Both films were directed by Steven Spielberg.
Then, the hotel alarms began blaring due to a life safety device being activated. We were told to stand by, and Flanery attempted to answer questions above the sound. Someone asked him about his hardest stunt, and he answered that jumping off of a dirt hill with an explosion behind him during the Battle of the Somme episode was the most difficult. The device went off early and singed the back of his head. Also, a steamer capsized while they were filming an Albert Schweitzer episode, and crocodiles and hippos inhabited the waters that he and the locals were forced to swim in.
Finally, he shared some of the dialogue the he still remembers from Young Indy, and although I have no idea what he said, just hearing him speak in foreign languages was fascinating. It was an incredibly entertaining panel and not nearly long enough at only a half hour.
Sean Patrick Flanery is witty, intelligent, and humbled by those that showed up to hear him talk. If he hadn’t won me over years ago already, I’d certainly be one of his biggest fans after hearing him. He was, and will forever be, Young Indiana Jones.