With Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny now available on Disney+ and to purchase on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD, Lucasfilm shares the story of fan Joost Dirkx who made the journey from the Netherlands to Hollywood for the premiere, and got engaged to Laura.
Among the 200 Indiana Jones fans invited to the Hollywood premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), one of them had a secret. Joost Dirkx, a cosplayer from the Netherlands, had traveled more than 6,000 miles with his girlfriend and fellow cosplayer, Laura Walhout, in order to attend the event. But what Laura didn’t know was that Joost had carefully (and quickly) arranged to ask her an important question on the red carpet.
“When we got the invitation to the Hollywood premiere, later that day I decided that this was the best moment to do the proposal,” says Joost. “What was really important was a ring. I had a plan to make it themed, and decided early that it should look like the Staff of Ra headpiece because Laura and I had created our Indy and Marion costumes. So I went to a jeweler, someone who actually forges these things. I discovered that it can take a year or more to get these things made. I had two or three weeks!
“I couldn’t go to a conventional jeweler,” Joost continues. “I found a 3D printing company that can print in metals, in this case gold. This was a week-and-a-half before we were leaving for Hollywood. They made an exception and worked it out to do it in time. It was made in the U.S., then it was sent to the Netherlands, and arrived the day before we flew out.”
Once they’d arrived on the red carpet, Joost and a friendly Lucasfilm employee quietly agreed on when and where he’d pop the question. As the couple posed for the cameras in front of a large display featuring Archimedes’ dial, Joost took a knee and caught Laura completely by surprise. “When I’m traveling, I’m the one preparing, making lists, trying to control everything,” Laura says. “I didn’t know anything about the proposal. Even when we got to Hollywood, I wasn’t thinking it would happen.”
Laura and Joost’s journey to that unforgettable moment began with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), the first Indy movie that each of them had seen as children. “The Netherlands is very small compared to the U.S.,” notes Laura. “I grew up in Enschede, which is in the east of the country near the border with Germany. It’s not a big city, just an average size one.
“I was seven or eight years old when I saw Temple of Doom,” Laura continues. “I loved the I thrill of adventure, the excitement of exploration, and the historical mysteries within this world. I wanted to travel and see all of those cultures. It was a whole world opening up. Growing up, I saw those movies so many times with my parents, family, and friends.”
In the south of the Netherlands, Joost grew up in the small town of Drunen, which he describes as “really a village.” It was there that he also first encountered Temple of Doom on television. “This was the first time they had shown an Indiana Jones movie on Dutch television,” he says. “The next day at school, everyone was talking about it. That’s when my fascination started. Later on, I saw The Last Crusade and Raiders of the Lost Ark. But also, my bond with Indy really comes from playing [the 1992 computer game] Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. I really loved that game. You got to be Indiana Jones for weeks on end. It took time to finish these games. There was no internet at the time, so you had to try and learn from other people how to finish the game.”
Joost admits that it took some effort to keep one’s fandom going during a time when Indy movies, stories, and collectibles were limited offerings, and even more so in Europe. “The Kenner Indiana Jones toys were very difficult to find in Europe,” he explains. “And even with Star Wars, by the time I was starting to collect things, the original hype was pretty much over. You could find second-hand toys at events. I would trade toys or buy them with pocket money from friends. I found some discarded Indy library books. But we mostly used our imaginations to recreate these stories.”
For Laura, her Indy passion was something very personal. “I was a fan of Star Wars and Indiana Jones but it was not a passion I shared with others,” she says. “I’m a girl, so I’m not supposed to like those. I was supposed to play with Barbies, which I always did as well! [laughs]
“There wasn’t really a fandom culture at school like we know nowadays,” Laura continues. “Everyone knew me as the girl who watched a lot of movies, but there it stopped. Later on, after I graduated from university, I went into the gaming industry, and then I learned that Disney had bought Lucasfilm. That was what motivated me to try and work for Disney and get involved in cosplay and things like that.”
Read the story in full at Lucasfilm.com. You can listen to our thoughts on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and the UK premiere on RADIO 1138.
