Size Matters Not: The Extraordinary Life and Career of Warwick Davis (16 page)

It was a nightmare – my short legs stuck out at right angles. “You just don’t have the equitation, Merrick,” the trainer told me. I didn’t know about that, but one thing I knew for sure was that I couldn’t control the damn creature and it would canter wherever it wanted, despite my yells. After two weeks of lessons I looked like one of those plastic toy cowboy figures that you sit on horses with their legs fixed in a permanent U-shape.

Val came over to London about two months before we were due to start shooting so we could rehearse. This would hopefully mean that when we were on location we would be able to knock out solid performances of each scene in one or two takes, saving time and money.

Val and I were together the whole time he was in the UK. He was loads of fun and completely crazy, a real maverick and totally unpredictable. He constantly improvised his lines, which really kept me on my toes. He was always thinking about his character, how far he could take him, how he would respond in almost any situation.

Val wasn’t afraid to speak his mind and was only too happy to pass on some acting tips, starting early on in rehearsals when he said, “Hang on a minute, Warwick. Why aren’t you breathing?”

I hadn’t realized that whenever I spoke my lines I held my breath as I delivered them. Val, thank goodness, taught me to act and breathe at the same time.

Willow
was the biggest casting call for little people in movie history, bigger than
Jedi
and
The
Wizard of Oz
. In the end they found 240 little people from all over the world.

I felt there was some resentment among them toward me. I wasn’t the most popular person on the set and I could understand it – some people would have given their right arm for my part (in the movie, I mean).

I tried not to hide in my own large “superstar” trailer but sometimes, as the “star,” you can’t help but be treated a certain way. For example, I was always called out to the set at the last minute, once everyone else had rehearsed and was in position and knew what they were doing. Some of my fellow little actors thought of me as a bit too big for my boots, but I’d been rehearsing most of the scenes for several months in England, and I usually had the longest day of all of the actors, so the production team were simply trying to conserve my energy. Still, it was a bit difficult and I sensed there was quite a bit of envy, although no one was especially nasty.

We started with the Newlyn village scenes, which were shot in Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire. I’ve heard rumors that the set was never dismantled and that the village is still there to this day, hidden by foliage and just next to a golf course. I can imagine errant golfers stumbling across it when hunting for lost balls and being thoroughly amazed and puzzled at this miniature-sized Stone Age–style encampment.

During filming those village huts were, er, ahem . . . “well used” by the little people; after all, it’s not that often we get to see so many of each other in one place – so things can get a little “heated,” shall we say. Sam, whom I’d met on the set of
Labyrinth
, was in the film as an extra, but we didn’t meet again until after the film.

There must have been something in the air as all the village pigs were at it, too. Scenes were constantly being interrupted by their sudden and extremely noisy lovemaking. Buckets of water were eventually used to dampen the poor creatures’ ardor. The pigs, that is, not the little people.

As George Lucas and Ron Howard were involved there was a huge media interest in the film from the UK press. Most of the journalists were kept away but I remember one young lady who managed to dip below the radar. She surprised me near my trailer.

“I’m doing a piece for
Look-In
magazine, for the back page where we put an interview with a famous actor and list their likes and dislikes,” she said, and started firing off a few questions. In my innocence I answered them freely. She asked me all sorts of silly little questions like “What’s your favourite color?” and “What’s your favorite food?” and so on.

Little did I know that she was actually freelancing for the
News of the
World
. From the answers I gave they conjured up the headline: “I Want a Tall, Dark, Six-Foot Lover!” (confirming Sam’s suspicions that I was a brat) and stuck it on the front page of the Sunday supplement magazine with a picture of me at the Cannes Film Festival wearing sunglasses and a sharp suit with a leggy woman (my sister) beside me.

At the time it was awful; my mum was horrified but that was nothing compared to Lucasfilm, who sent in their heaviest lawyers and got an apology from the
News of the
World
printed in the next issue. Mind you, it wasn’t much of an apology, and you had to look very hard to find it in-between all the breasts.

With a roar another wave came crashing down, my boat spun in the raging Force 10 wind, foam and air roaring like a jet engine. This had been a really bad idea. I could barely swim. I’m going to drown! I thought, fighting the panic as wave after wave crashed over me.

Water poured down on me from above. Finally, I felt the edge of the tank and grabbed hold. “
Cut
!” Ron yelled.

I clambered over the side of Pinewood’s million-gallon reservoir as the storm, created by six airplane engines, countless pumps, and wave machines, subsided.

“Okay, people!” Ron yelled, “let’s go again!”

“What?!”

I’d spent the last two weeks in that reservoir being tossed and turned by wave machines. The tank is really a
huge
man-made lake. Any UK-made film that featured a lake, sea, or river would be shot in it, including just about every Bond movie.

We were filming a long and complex storm sequence. In the film, Willow had to journey to an island to pick up the good sorceress Fin Raziel, who was disguised as a possum, but on our way back to the mainland, the evil sorceress cast a spell that whipped up a great storm in an attempt to drown us.

Part of the scene involved me swimming underwater for extended periods, using a respirator between takes. We shot this scene in a special underwater tank back at Elstree. As a proud seventeen-year-old, I was embarrassed to admit that I couldn’t swim. I’m not as naturally buoyant as most and although this was normally a disadvantage, it also meant I could remain underwater with no difficulty at all, so as long as the respirator and safety divers were nearby I guessed I’d be okay.

After two weeks in the tank I was at the end of my tether but I remained determined to prove my staying power to Ron and the crew. It’s amazing how far you will push yourself for a director like Ron. You can get to what you think is your limit but then somehow you manage to push through it.

I was never forced to do anything and Ron was always very careful not to work me too hard, but when you’ve got hundreds of people toiling around the clock to set up a scene that then all depends on your performance it’s very, very hard to disappoint them and to admit that maybe you haven’t the strength to continue. Or even just say you would very much like a break.

So I went again.

The enormous waves were created by giant water chutes at the top of which were suspended giant tip-tanks. These held thousands of gallons of water that, at the right moment, would be released down the fifty-foot chutes into the tank, creating man-made tsunamis. I was supposed to try and ride these in my tiny boat for as long as possible before falling overboard.

I was just below two of these slides, standing on the boat, easing myself further into the center of the tank, readying myself for the cry of “Action!” when I heard a whooshing sound, which quickly turned into a roar. I looked up to see a wall of white water crashing down at me from above. Someone had released the door of one of the containers too early.

“Oh F–” was about as far as I got before I disappeared under tons of water. I popped up like a cork at the other end of the tank, found the little boat beside me, and clambered aboard. I turned, looking for Ron, and saw him staring at me in shock.

I took a deep breath and yelled at the top of my voice: “
What the hell are you trying to do, drown me?
”

As defiantly as I could, I stomped out of the wobbling boat and off the set in a huff. Although this was nothing compared to the huff that followed when Ron told me that the footage from these two sodden weeks wouldn’t make it into the final cut! They had too much material and it was felt that this sequence did not add anything to the story – so it remains unseen to this day. The empty underwater tank is now hidden below the stage for
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
.

A few weeks later the entire cast and crew were flown to New Zealand on our own jumbo jet. I had arrived at the airport dressed in white and wearing fake Ray-Bans. I really thought I looked the business.

As I was about to step on the plane, Val came over to say “Hi,” or so I thought. Instead, he snatched the glasses off my face, snapped them in two, and threw them in a nearby bin. Then he just stood there, smiling at me.

I was speechless. “I . . . What? . . . Why? . . . My image, ruined!” was all I managed. What the hell was Val playing at? He was just standing there. In my path. Grinning.

“Here you go, Warwick,” he said, and presented me with two new pairs of genuine Ray-Bans. He’d just bought them in the airport. He turned, his shoulders shaking with laughter, and boarded the plane before my brain had time to readjust and thank him. That was typical of Val, completely unpredictable and generous to a fault.

Flying to New Zealand was an incredible experience. I was in first class and the seat, to me, was about the size of a four-poster bed. At one point in the flight I peeked between the gap in the seats and saw that Joanne Whalley – who played Sorsha, Madmartigan’s love interest – and Val were getting very cozy indeed, and got more and more so the longer the flight went on.
^c
Some scenes were reshot once they became a couple, because their sexual chemistry was then so much better.