The snake pit scene in Steven Spielberg’s adventure classic “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was made immensely less scary thanks to a revelation from famed zookeeper Robert Irwin.
“Oh, this is interesting,” Irwin declared to GQ while watching footage from the first “Indiana Jones” film, which came out in 1981. “Stop there. Okay, that, that’s not a snake. That’s a legless lizard. This is a fun fact. I never noticed this until now.”
He added: “Okay, so the larger ‘snakes’ in this scene, like you can see one very easily in the top righthand of the screen here. That is not a snake. It’s a legless lizard. You know how you can tell? Because there’s a little tiny hole at the back of its head, which is an ear. Those are its ears.”
And, per the conservationist, “true snakes do not have ears.” This is why he could confidently rule that the reptile in-question was actually a legless lizard.
“It is a lizard that is like any other lizard,” Irwin doubled down. “Except, it’s evolved with no legs. But the fact that it has ears means it’s not a snake, it’s a lizard. So, some of those are actually lizards.”
Watch his commentary below.
@gq #RobertIrwin is getting to the bottom of Hollywood’s reptile secrets. 🔍🐍 At the link in bio, see Irwin break down scenes from the most popular animal movies, including #IndianaJones: ♬ original sound – GQ
Spielberg famously started out with 2,000 real snakes to bring to life his bone-chilling Well of Souls for “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” However, the director wasn’t satisfied with the amount during production, ultimately calling on reptile handlers to bring between 6,000 and 10,000 snakes to set.
The snake-filled Well of Souls became a highly discussed point of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” as Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones and Karen Allen’s Marion Ravenwood found themselves trapped among the terrifying creatures at the height of the movie.
Spielberg later said on “The Dick Cavett Show” that filming this sequence was “the scariest part of making the movie.” Nonetheless, he stood by his decision to up the snake ante.
“The problem was when you put the 2,000 live snakes on the floor, they all huddled into a corner and it looked like just a little dust swept under the rug,” Spielberg further shared. “I realized to cover the entire floor of the set, a very rather large set, we would need about 7,000 snakes.”
Watch the iconic scene from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” above.
