LOS ANGELES -- It's been over 25 years since Indiana Jones first burst onto screens cracking his bullwhip and dusting off his fedora after yet another death-defying scrape. Now aged 65, Harrison Ford is back.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" -- the fourth installment in the series since the 1981 release of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" -- is due to be released worldwide on May 22.

Screen action hero Ford once again takes up the role of the crusty, swashbuckling archaeologist he last played in 1989. This time starring alongside Cate Blanchett.

And the few extra grey hairs and wrinkles on his grizzled features won't pass unnoticed. "There will ... be references that my character has definitely aged since the last movie," he said.

But in an interview with Agence France-Presse, Ford refused to spill the beans on what thrills await audiences in the film dubbed by Paramount as "the adventure continues."

Age doesn't appear to have to slowed him down any, with Ford performing most of his own stunts in the movie directed once again by Steven Spielberg and produced by George Lucas.

"There's going to be a definite connection to the previous pictures ... and dialogue references, but it would be unfair to audiences for me to be more specific," Ford said, adding that Karen Allen, who played Indiana's love interest, Marion Ravenwood, in the original movie, is also back.

After a string of flops, it could mark a return back to the top of the box-office for Ford. His recent films such as "Hollywood Homicide," "Firewall"and "K-9: The Widowmaker" were badly received.

But asked if he would ever consider returning as Han Solo, the role in the Lucas series "Star Wars" which first shot him to fame in 1977, Ford joked: "Only if my character was dead, and just had to speak and not move. The truth of the matter is, I'm still recovering from the stunts, most of which I did myself, on the new Indiana Jones film."

The Indiana Jones films have grossed more than $1.18 billion, while Forbes magazine estimated in 2005 that the "Star Wars" franchise has generated as much as $20 billion in revenues over the past three decades.

Ford says his over-riding "Star Wars" memory took place far, far away from any fantasy galaxy.

"It was the day my accountant convinced me that [due to] the success of the film and their two sequels that ... I would never be poor again," he said wryly.

"It was a very Scarlett O'Hara moment considering prior to that I was making more of a living as a carpenter than as an actor," he said.

Ruefully, he admits that he wished he was more remembered for some of his other screen performances such as in "The Mosquito Coast" or "Witness," for which he won his only Oscar nomination as best actor.

"The Mosquito Coast" directed by Peter Weir and also starring Helen Mirren and River Phoenix remains one of his favorite films, he said.

?The themes of the film were unique and vital. Thus I think audiences had a hard time embracing it because it didn't have an action narrative but was slower paced in its story telling,? Ford said.

"That film and 'Witness,' which Peter also directed, are my two favorite performances. Both films are well worth seeing now," he said.

But he laughs at the idea that making the long-delayed "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of The Crystal Skull" was as difficult as doing the original "Star Wars."

"That movie was so strange to make. I was running around in tights for three months acting with a nearly seven-foot-tall man in some kind of dog suit on a freezing sound stage in London," Ford gleefully recalled.

"Mark Hamill and I had a bet each day as to who had the worst dialogue," he said.

"Whenever we would ask George what we were shooting at, or fleeing from, he'd just tell us the special effects will be put in much later and that will explain everything. George will never be known as an actors' director!" he said.

Asked whether over the decades he has become a better actor, Ford joked: ?Maybe not better at reading scripts.?

"But I am better at working with other actors and not fighting my instincts. It's hard to be a team player when your fellow actors treat you like a star," he said, adding: "I look forward to my days as an old character actor, which should be any minute now!"