Size Matters Not: The Extraordinary Life and Career of Warwick Davis (9 page)

“Yes?” I asked impatiently. “Look, I’ve got chemistry to get to,” I added, tugging on my trolley. It was a good march across the playing field to get there on time and the chemistry book weighed a flipping ton.

“
You’ve touched her!
”

“Er . . .,” I said, starting to walk quickly away.

“
Star Wars!
” Daniel added desperately. “You were in it, right?”

“Yes.”

“You acted with Prin– . . . I mean Carrie Fisher?”

“Yes.”

Daniel sighed, a dopey half-smile on his face. “What was she like?”

“Very nice.”

Daniel followed me wherever I went. I found him incredibly annoying but he persisted, constantly talking about nothing but
Star Wars
. We were truly the oddest couple, the shortest and tallest thirteen-year-olds in all of Surrey, the tall one always trailing the cross-looking short one at a safe distance, yelling the odd question.

Most of my time was spent trying to avoid him. It should have been easy to spot Daniel coming a mile off, but he’d always suddenly appear next to me as if by magic and say something like: “So, the scene where Leia’s got her hair down and they’re telling stories round the campfire. Why didn’t you wrap your arms round
her
leg? What made you choose Harrison Ford?”

He was always there, wherever I turned, and he talked incessantly and rapidly, without pause for breath, asking questions like: “Is there a man inside C-3PO and why is he so slow? You’d think they’d make him more mobile, talking of which, how did R2-D2 cope with the surface of Endor?” He’d wind me up by asking, “Are you sure you weren’t in
Time Bandits?
”
^c
a question that has since come to haunt me wherever I go.

He also forced me to listen to heavy metal in an effort to get me to appreciate its finer nuances. “See, he’s using a double bass drum kit with two pedals so he can churn out a hundred and fifty beats per minute.” All I could hear was the never-ending sound of a washing machine full of hammers on spin.

I was into Michael Jackson and had just heard “Billie Jean” for the first time. I had it on a cassette kept in my huge Walkman. The first time I heard it, I didn’t realize it was Michael, but the opening beat blew me away. Like thousands of other teens, I’d religiously tune in to Radio One’s Top 40 with Bruno Brookes every Sunday, trying like thousands of other kids all over the country to hit play and record just at the right moment, before Bruno opened his gob and spoke over the music. I was a creature of habit and would even prepare myself for the experience every week by having a bath before the show.

My parents also influenced my musical taste at the time. The long holiday journeys to pubs with fields were often scored by the sound of the Carpenters, Fleetwood Mac, and Neil Diamond playing on the 8-track.

I enjoyed school. I was outspoken, larger-than-life,
^d
and through some decent voice projection I was able to make sure I was heard everywhere I went. The one thing I dreaded, though, was sports. By default I was the last person to be picked for any team.

The school refused to accept any of my excuses. I still can’t understand why they thought that I, at three feet, would enjoy cross-country running. I mean, what
were
they expecting? I couldn’t believe they wanted me to do the long jump as well. My “leap” didn’t even take me as far as the sand pit. Still, at least they didn’t make me try the high jump.

I did once score a goal. Someone booted the ball at me and it bounced off my head and into the back of the net. The sports master was so excited that I didn’t have the heart to disappoint him, so I pretended it was all planned.

For some reason, despite my extensive Wicket experience,
^e
the school decided cricket was “too dangerous” but they still found a way to torture me by making me keep score. I sat in a damp little hut with a tiny flap window, which was too high, so I’d have to spend the entire match on my toes struggling to change the adjustable flaps that showed the score to the outside world. It didn’t help that the scoring system made no sense to me whatsoever.

The one sport I excelled in was badminton; I was all over the court in a Tasmanian Devil–style whirl and could get under almost any shot. I was also the perfect height to hit a smash just over the net at full stretch. Also, I could do more chin-ups than any other person in the school – although I had to be careful I wasn’t left hanging anywhere I couldn’t get down from again.

Academically, I was an average student, quite good at French, math, and English. The only play we did at school was
Oliver Twist
and shockingly I wasn’t in it. Instead I was given responsibility for the lighting – and it was horrible. I hated it. I wanted to be in front of the lights, not behind them.

In desperation to find a useful channel for my ridiculous energy and huge personality, Mum had packed me off to Saturday drama school when I was eight. The Laine Theatre Arts School in Epsom has a pretty good reputation; they’ve churned out more than their share of West End performers over the years.
^f
I took to acting immediately, although Mrs. Reynolds, my drama teacher, who was distinguished by her extravagant mustache, was extremely serious and did her level best to remove as much of the fun from the proceedings as possible.

I was also the only boy there. Every now and then another boy would show up for a few Saturdays but they always seemed to me . . . well . . . very effeminate.

Somehow, Daniel found out I went to drama school.

“Can I come?” he asked.

I considered it and realized I would actually be grateful for the male company. I also relished the idea of what Mrs. Reynolds would make of Daniel.

“There are lots of girls there,” I said.

Daniel’s face became a picture of delight. “Excellent!”

While my own curiosity was just starting to emerge, Daniel already displayed an extremely advanced interest in the opposite sex.

Mrs. Reynolds’s mustache twitched when she saw Daniel. I could see she was thinking “That boy’s trouble,” and she was right.

We behaved just as we did at school: I played the straight man to Daniel’s idiot. Easy. Daniel loved it and we started performing our own comedy skits, which continually pushed the boundaries of
bad
taste and
in
decency. Once, in front of our class of girls, mainly posh ballerina types, all very nice and proper, we performed a short piece featuring two professors meeting in a coffee bar, both about to give a talk at a science conference. It was all puns and no plot, something along the lines of:

Professor Gasm: Good day, Professor Org.

Professor Org: Ah! Professor Gasm. Wonderful to see you again.

The professors shake hands happily.

Professor Gasm: I don’t know why, but seeing you, well it makes me feel complete again.

Professor Org: I know just what you mean. Do you come here often?

Professor Gasm: Frequently, more than is good for my health, I fear.

Professor Org: Coffee?

Professor Gasm: Don’t mind if I do.

Professor Org: Cream?

Professor Gasm: Oh, yes, please, one can never have too much.

And on it went.

I’m not sure the sensitive Mrs. Reynolds ever really recovered from the two professors; she was more appreciative of the girls who did complex studies about motion and modern interpretations of Middle Age plays.

Fortunately, it did go down rather better with our female classmates who, surprisingly to us, laughed along quite merrily, and it was this very response that saved us from being booted out. It also inspired us to do lots of other daft things, like reenacting scenes from the
Twilight Zone
movie for our graduation tests, and overdubbing the
Star Wars
movies with silly voices and giving the films a very different plot.

Although an extrovert, I could still be pretty awkward in some social situations and would often run out of things to say. Daniel, on the other hand, was just brilliantly social and he always broke the ice, even if it was with a window-rattling fart.

He was also very lucky with the ladies. While most teenage boys stared awkwardly from across the classroom, Daniel adopted the fearless approach of asking out girls he liked immediately.

I had no success whatsoever. I couldn’t understand it – I mean, what’s not to love? I was a good-looking movie star, if I say so myself . . . just a little bit below average in height. No different from Tom Cruise. But the teenage ladies at school wanted to fit in with all their friends and so they dated tall people. The height thing was hugely important to them. While most girls were more than happy to be my friend, none were prepared to go that extra mile (or two feet) and become a girlfriend.

Daniel, however, was never short of a girlfriend. It was a complete mystery to me; he was lanky, had disgusting habits, listened to awful music, and had ridiculously long hair (by this time I was sporting a particularly fine and fashionable mullet).

There was one occasion where we both fancied the same girl. Blinded by a combination of her beauty and my own hormones, I resorted to dastardly methods to sabotage Daniel’s advances. I wrote a letter explaining why Daniel didn’t like her and couldn’t go out with her and that I, on the other hand, would be delighted to take her out. At the last moment, I couldn’t bring myself to slip it into her desk, so I ripped the letter up and threw it into an empty locker.

It was around this time that Daniel said, “Do you realize we’ve just had a conversation without either of us mentioning
Star Wars
once?”

Bloody hell, I thought, we’ve only gone and become friends!

^a
A large chain of roadside restaurants famous for their “Olympic Breakfast.” I don’t think you’d win a gold medal immediately after finishing one, however.

^b
Apparently, Ewokese was inspired by the dialect spoken by a remote Central Chinese tribe. Having said that, some fans have noticed that one of the songs sung by the Ewoks sounds like “
Det luktar flingor här
,” which is Swedish for “It smells of cereal here.” I must admit that some of the Ewok costumes did smell a little like stale Rice Krispies.