Up next in the Vintage Film Series: ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’

Any actor worth his or her dog-eared copy of a Stanislavski tome secretly dreams of embodying an Iconic Character - capital “I,” capital “C.”

Most thespians never climb that mountain. Even fewer do it twice. It’s an exclusive club, and Harrison Ford is among its members.

First, in 1977, Ford was Han Solo, the cynical, winking backbone of George Lucas’ otherwise earnest space opera “Star Wars.”

Four years later, in 1981, he played a swashbuckling archaeologist in the Lucas-inspired, Steven Spielberg-directed “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

There are parallels between Solo and Dr. Jones. Both are charming rogues. Both treat women in ways that wouldn’t quite fly in the #MeToo era.

Both straddle the line between courage and cowardice, selfishness and sacrifice. We root for them even as we shake our heads. We decry their cocky, impetuous nature even as we acknowledge we’d love to crack a cold one with either one.

Here’s how Lucas described the Indiana Jones character to Spielberg and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan (who also penned “The Empire Strikes Back”) in a story-conference transcript unearthed by Patrick Radden Keefe of the New Yorker:

Lucas: “The main thing is for him to be a superhero in the best sense of the word, which is [the] John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery tradition of a man who we can all look up to and say, ‘Now there’s somebody who really knows his job. He’s really good at what he does and he’s a very dangerous person. But at the same time we’re putting him in the kind of Bogart mold, like ‘Treasure of Sierra Madre’ or...”

Spielberg: “Or even the Clark Gable thing we talked about.”

Lucas: “Yeah, the Clark Gable mold. The fact that he is slightly scruffy. You don’t know it until it happens. ... The other thing we’ve added to him, which may be fun, is a bull whip. That’s really his trade mark.”

That was the vision: Wayne, Eastwood, Connery, Gable. Even fresh off his success in “Star Wars,” that was a ton of weight to place on Ford’s shoulders. Just embody the essence of four of the manliest, most memorable leading men in film history. No pressure.

Yet Ford pulled it off with aplomb and made what could have been a cartoonish, forgettable romp into one of the most beloved adventure films of all-time.

Oh, and by the way, he wasn’t even the first choice for the role. As he confirmed during an appearance on the “Late Show With David Letterman,” Tom Selleck was initially offered the part but was barred from taking it because of his commitment to the TV show “Magnum PI.”

(In fact, Selleck told Letterman, he went to Hawaii to film PI but an actor’s strike interceded, forcing him to take a temporary job as a handyman, even as production was wrapping in the Aloha State on a film called...”Raiders of the Lost Ark.”)

Ford reprised the role in three sequels, with mixed results. Raiders remains the gold standard for the franchise.

Who doesn’t want to see Harrison Ford taking down Nazis with a smirk and a bullwhip?

It’s an Iconic Character. And, now and forever more, Harrison Ford will be Dr. Jones. Just don’t ask him about snakes.