Alfred Molina

Lore & Background

In the film, Satipo follows Indy through the temple's traps on the way in. On the way out the pair reach a pit; Satipo crosses using Indy's whip and offers to throw it back in exchange for the golden fertility idol. Once he has the idol he drops the whip and runs, forgets the wall trap he had watched Indy test, and is killed, while Indy escapes. An early script by Lawrence Kasdan had Satipo flee the boulder with Indy and die at the hands of the Hovito tribe instead, but that version was dropped.

Reader's Guide

Molina said in a 2013 interview that he owes his stage and film career to the Indiana Jones series. He had never been in front of a camera before the role, called getting the job a gift, and said he has thanked Spielberg many times for it. He has said he is glad that people still shout his line about the idol and the whip at him. Satipo is also one of three Lego Minifigures modelled on Molina, and the character turns up in the 1999 game Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, in the secret level "Return to Peru".

Did You Know?

• Satipo is named after a Peruvian town, Satipo, in the Junín Region.
• Molina was first cast as Arnold Rimmer in the sitcom Red Dwarf but was replaced by Chris Barrie.

Career beyond Raiders

His real breakthrough came with Letter to Brezhnev (1985), followed by a lead role as Kenneth Halliwell in Prick Up Your Ears (1987). He earned BAFTA nominations for playing Diego Rivera in Frida (2002) and Jack Mellor in An Education (2009). He played Otto Octavius, Doctor Octopus, in Spider-Man 2 (2004) and returned to the part in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). On Broadway he received Tony nominations for Art, Fiddler on the Roof and Red.