What The Cast Of Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom Looks Like Today

Indiana Jones was born out of George Lucas' love of the movie serials of his youth, and after telling Steven Spielberg about him on a 1977 Hawaiian vacation, four years later Harrison Ford swung into theaters as the archeologist in their smash hit, "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Spielberg said as a part of their Hawaiian handshake deal that if they made the one Indy film, they would make two more.

In the vein of the "Star Wars" trilogy, like "The Empire Strikes Back," Lucas said "the middle part is the darkest part." Spielberg added that the "Raiders" sequel "was going to be more of a serious adventure for Indiana Jones, more of a dangerous ... a little scarier ... a little more like a nightmare" (via Making of) and revolved around a Thugee cult in the "The Temple of Death." It was renamed to the softer "Temple of Doom," but with its 215 acts of violence (per NCTV), its PG rating set off an outraged national debate, ultimately leading to the creation of PG-13 (although Spielberg favored it being called "PG-2," and then Paramount chief Barry Diller liked the sound of "R-13").

While the film is often seen as the dark middle child of the "Indiana Jones" franchise, it nonetheless broke box office records, won an Oscar for its groundbreakingly-gruesome visual effects, and for Spielberg, "the greatest thing that ever happened to me in my life came out of the 'Temple of Doom' experience and that is that the girl I cast to play Willie Scott turned out to be my wife."

Let's play archeologist and see what the girl who played Willie Scott looks like today — as well as her living co-stars, many who had their career made by the movie, and for some, remains their biggest claim to fame.

Kate Capshaw tired of life as a teacher and decided to make a go at acting, landing her first big role on the soap opera "The Edge of Night."  A few years later, she made Spielberg laugh during her "Temple of Doom" audition, and landed the role of Willie Scott, who Capshaw told the Los Angeles Times was "strong and spunky and with a good sense of humor." She always had a fantasy of singing, and got to do so in the "Doom" opening scene, but said in the "Making of" that " it wasn't exactly a dream come true, because I had to sing in Chinese."

While Capshaw went on to become a leading lady in films like "Dreamscape" (the second movie ever film released as PG-13), "Spacecamp," "Black Rain," and "Just Cause," she also became the true leading lady in Spielberg's life. The two briefly dated in 1983, then rekindled their romance in 1988, while Spielberg was married to Amy Irving. Those two divorced in 1989, and Capshaw and Spielberg married two years later (with Harrison Ford naturally in attendance) and have 7 children between them. Capshaw hasn't acted since 2002, and one of her final credited roles was a movie she bought the rights to and Spielberg's Dreamworks produced: 1999's "The Love Letter." It went head-to-head at the box office as counter-programming to old pal George Lucas' "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace."

As for the "forgotten Indiana Jones movie" that brought them together, Capshaw told Empire, "If I walk into a room and it's on, we both have to sit down as we can both remember it like it was yesterday. We'll go, 'Oh yeah, remember that? You weren't talking to me during that part,' or, 'Oh, that was a really big flirt day. It was so much fun."

A native of New Delhi who studied at The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Roshan Seth told the Associated Press he was "torn between the two [India and England] — a leg in each of these cultures — never really knowing who I am." He's eschewed Bollywood, and is more at home in western cinema, enjoying "playing arrogant Indians" (via NPR). After six years off screens to work in journalism, he made a huge return to the industry in 1982, playing the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru in Richard Attenborough's Best Picture-winning "Gandhi." Seth was nominated for a BAFTA for his work, and his follow-up project found him "working with this wiz kid director," Spielberg.

As Chattar Lal, Prime Minister to the Maharaja in "Temple of Doom," Seth told Empire he was "an Oxford-educated Indian smoothie who was a crook." Seth had "terrible hots for Kate Capshaw," and received a lot of heat from his fellow countrymen for the depictions of Indians in the film, especially over the banquet scene, which he called "a joke that went wrong."

Seth followed "Doom" in back-to-back years with the acclaimed films "A Passage to India" and "My Beautiful Laundrette," and later lent his steady voice and acting skills to Mira Nair's "Mississippi Masala," "Street Fighter" ("so bad" he walked out of the screening), and "Such a Long Journey," for which he won a Genie award for Best Actor. He later appeared in Michael Winterbottom's "Trishna," Tim Burton's live-action "Dumbo," and even slipped on his Nehru jacket one more time to play the Prime Minister in the 2007 TV movie, "The Last Days of the Raj."

Kuala Lampur-born Wing-Wah Yung made a name for himself as Eric Young (shortened to Ric Young around 1978) in England. A student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he anglicized his name, telling The Straits Times in 1960 that he didn't want to be typecast, playing "the perennial Chinese houseboy." His first bit part was in the 1958 Ingrid Bergman film "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness," and he'd later co-star opposite Christopher Lee in a series of "Fu Manchu" films, Gregory Peck in "The Chairman," James Bond in "You Only Live Twice," and almost drowned for his part in 1965's "Lord Jim." He also logged small roles on shows like "The Avengers," "The Saint," "Hawaii Five-O," and on a few projects with Chua Kah Joo before the two would play the evil sons of Lao Che in "Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom."

In an illuminating interview with Movie Geeks United, Young said "Temple" was "one of the greatest thrills of my life." He added that he looked "very determined and very angry" in his audition before Spielberg and Lucas, which helped to land the highly animated role of "Kao Kan, who was this sorta of smartass, tough gangster's son. He was the one who kept shooting with a tommy gun at Indy."

"Temple" put Young on the path to Hollywood, and he went on to appear in "The Last Emperor," "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story," as Mao Tse-Tung in Oliver Stone's "Nixon," "Booty Call," "Seven Years in Tibet," 2000's "Chain of Command" with fellow Club Obi Wan gangster Philip Tan, a handful of "Alias" episodes and "The Transporter." In 2007 he wrote, directed, produced and starred in the short film about a Chinese rabbi, "Oh Vey!"

Philip Tan is a Singaporean Brit who went from Youth Olympic gymnast to Men's British Tae Kwon do Champion to being able buy his own house at 18 after his first break into film, 1980's "The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu" starring Peter Sellers. 

Years later, on the set of "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes," he met "a guy named Steven" who asked him to work on "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" choreography, without realizing who Spielberg was. Tan recalled to Kung-Fu Kingdom, "You can't be the director, you're like 30 years-old!" Tan trained Ke Huy Quan to fight, and even got to play the Chief Henchman who gets smacked in the face by a cymbal tossed by Dr. Jones. He re-teamed with Spielberg for "Empire of the Sun" and "Minority Report," and with George Lucas on "Willow."

After working on "Batman" he made the leap to America "and the rest is history," including doing stunt and fight work with the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell, Wesley Snipes, Sammo Hung, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Brandon Lee, Dolph Lundgren and Jason Statham. Frustrated with the limitations of roles offered in Hollywood, as he told the South China Morning Post in 2005, always killing people as "a gang member or a gangster. It's pretty sad," Tan has branched out into producing and directing, working on second units for such films as "Orgasmo" and 2022's "Commando. Nonetheless, he still works on stunts (his latest being Brad Pitt's "Bullet Train") and acting (co-starring in Antonio Sabato Jr.'s "Trail Blazers").

Iranganie Serasinghe, the "Beloved mother of Sinhala cinema," was called that because she was so adept at playing mothers in Sri Lankan films. The English trained actress first portrayed one in 1956's "Rekava," and was a natural to play one of the main village mothers in "Temple of Doom," yearning to see their enslaved child again (thanks to Indiana Jones, they do in the end). Serasinghe later relayed to colleague Michael Roberts that Spielberg "was impressed with the role I played, and after completing the film he told me 'I believed you.'"

Prior to "Temple," she had previously acted with her fellow "villager" actors and fellow Sri Lankans D.R. Nanayakkara (five other times, including her debut in "Rekava"), Dharmadasa Kuruppu, Ruby de Mel, Denavaka Hamine, and later with Roshan Seth in the 1998 TV movie "Iqbal." Serasinghe prefers the stage to cinema, and at age 95, shows no sign of slowing down. Now she's more prone to playing grandmothers, although when asked about playing great-grandmothers, she replied with a laugh: "I don't know."

Outside of acting, Serasinghe is a dedicated environmental activist and helped found Ruk Rakaganno (The Tree Society of Sri Lanka). She told Roberts that "we need not focus only on trees. But also on air we breathe, water we drink and irrigation, and sunlight that nourish all vegetation and the animals live near and far. All these are interconnected." Not only is she a mother of cinema, but one of the earth too.

Filling out small roles in a large way is something Ahmed El Shenawi has excelled at, ever since he moved from Egypt to England in 1971. He sounded off on the BBC Arabic Service radio, and in 1978 alone, danced in a Turkish prison in the Alan Parker/Oliver Stone Academy Award winning film "Midnight Express," then shared a bill alongside such heavyweights as Ian Holm, Roddy McDowall, Terrence Stamp and Peter Ustinov in "The Thief of Baghdad." According to El Shenawi's daughter Eman, Ustinov told her father that he was "'an actor with no problem,' implying that my father's talent is unquestionable and beyond doubt."

In 1984, his "barrel of laughs" career hit a zenith when he slapped on a mustache and turban and played a merchant who dined with Indiana Jones and other guests in "The Temple of Doom." Seated next to Capshaw's Willie Scott, who wasn't all too keen on his smell, he was so excited when the "snake surprise" dish was served (the snakes were actually jelly sweets). Spielberg was impressed with El Shenawi's work, and per his daughter, said, "Ahmed, you are a Shakespearian-type actor."

Later, after a stomach stapling operation, he lost half of his weight, and his acting career hit a crossroads, as his "character as the 'chubby Arab man'" could no longer be filled out. On the plus side, he was "thrilled that I could wear a better selection of suits!"

As per his daughter, El Shenawi still resides in London, is doing well and fondly remembers his acting days, especially "Indiana Jones," which remains "a big moment for him."

When actor Nizwar Karanj appeared on screens small and big in the early '80s, he often played to stereotypes, as he told Yahoo!, "they put a turban on my head and they browned me up." That included his biggest known role as the sacrifice victim in the "Temple," who not only has his heart ripped out of his body, but to add insult to injury, is burned to a crisp. 

Nizwar never saw a script for this role, but did add to it, telling Spielberg he would chant "om namah shivaya" if he were in such a death-facing situation. While Nizwar didn't get burned (a body cast made of him did), his heart did skip a beat seeing Barbra Streisand and Carrie Fisher on set.

In the same year as the "Temple" release, he had a part in the Rod Steiger/Anthony Perkins mini-series "The Glory Boys," and would later appear in 1998's "Such a Long Journey," also co-starring Roshan Seth, in Atom Egoyan "Felicia's Journey" and in 2002's "Dirty Pretty Things." Nizwar admitted to Yahoo! that "theater was giving me much better parts, and I felt much nicer doing it," and he has earned praise for his work on the English stage, as being "engaging" and standing "out for his fine sense of comic timing."

But no matter what he's done, his sacrifice for cinema "follows me everywhere I go! I look back on 'Indiana Jones', and I really enjoyed it," adding "In my own small way, it's a sort of immortality."