Size Matters Not: The Extraordinary Life and Career of Warwick Davis

by Davis, Warwick

  “Ah, ah!” we said smugly, wagging our fingers forbiddingly, as some enterprising crew members prepared to launch their retaliation in the form of jam doughnuts. “We’re in costume!” They couldn’t attack without ruining our costumes and thereby the rest of the day’s filming.

  On another occasion we sent the Ewok bus up to the set with a note saying that the Ewoks had had enough and were on their way to the airport (which for some people was only a half-joke). Production assistant Ian Bryce, who received the note, flew into such a panic as a result that he leapt into a car and headed off at top speed to the airport to try to talk us out of going. Fortunately, he got a flat tire just after he left and when our bus pulled up a second time, we were all wearing T-shirts that read Revenge of the Ewok.

  I didn’t realize but as the only kid on the set apart from Nicky, I was a kind of moral guardian. All the other actors were on their best behavior whenever I showed up; booze was put away, cigarettes were stubbed out, swearing and dirty jokes were halted midflow, and so on.

  The whole Jedi experience was great; I had no idea that this was a defining time in my life; at the time it felt like I’d won an amazing competition. As we finished filming the last Ewok scene and the cry “Heads off!” echoed through the redwood forest for the final time, one Ewok actor said with some passion, “Well, thank God that’s over!” While many of my fellow Ewok actors were truly grateful that their costumed torture had finally come to an end, I moped about miserably. I did not relish the idea of leaving this galaxy of adventure for a life of normaldom.

  To mark the end of principal photography, the producers organized a wrap party for all cast and crew. I managed to miss most of this by falling asleep. There’s a picture of me out cold on a chair during the Ewok wrap party with Carrie Fisher behind me, her finger over her mouth, going “Shhhh!”

  The day after the wrap party I said my good-byes to everyone, from George the chicken to George the Jedi Master, from Ray the wise surfer dude, to Carrie, Mark, and Harrison, from Nicky to Kenny, not forgetting Sal and Phil – two little people who became my friends and both married very tall girls who happened to be twins.a

  I was leaving so many friends and it was utterly heartbreaking. Still, at least we arrived back in the UK just in time for the school summer holidays. I was glum but grudgingly glad to be back home when Dad said the magic words: “Warwick, how would you like a holiday in the caravan?”

  aThey divorced. Both of them.

  Chapter Four

  The Caravan of Courage

  The Davis family loved caravanning – Dad was probably the only man in the UK who towed his with an E-type Jag.

  A rare sunny day in a field next to a pub.

  This is more like it. If you weren’t careful during the night, you could end up frozen to the condensation on the window.

  The first caravan we owned was called a Monza. It sounds exciting, as if it were something sleek and luxurious, like a Grand Prix driver’s mobile dressing room. In reality it was a shed on wheels. The condensation that covered the inside of the single-glazed windows would turn into ice on a cold morning.

  Water was pumped into the sink using a foot pedal, causing the Monza to sway rudely from side to side; simply washing up would leave Mum exhausted. About the quality and weight of a good piece of tinder, the caravan was lit by gas. It wasn’t as if we couldn’t afford something better – my dad was well off, he had a good job, and even used his silver E-type Jaguar to tow the box on wheels.

  The four of us somehow managed to bed down fairly comfortably each night. However, I had to be careful I didn’t roll over onto the window in my sleep otherwise I’d wake up frozen to the glass.

  Despite this we loved it and we loved caravanning. We’d been going on holidays to Cornwall, Wales, and Devon for as long as I could remember. After the Jag, we had an ancient but loyal Ford Cortina wagon. Dad would take advantage of this by leaving very early in the morning. He’d pack everything else before folding down the back seats, lifting us out of our beds, still sleeping, and carrying us along with our bedclothes into the wagon part of the car. He’d close the hatch very quietly and my parents then enjoyed a peaceful early morning drive without choruses of “Are we there yet?” or “I’m bored!” or “Can we stop at the Little Chef ?a Can we, can we, can we, can we, can we?” Instead my sister and I would wake up in some strange new land, discovering we were indeed already “there,” wherever “there” was.

  “There” was usually in a field next to a pub where I’d have something in a basket (something that looked and tasted a little bit like chicken) and a Britvic orange. Even to me, the Britvic bottles were tiny, but I did love a Britvic. As long as I had that and a packet of Salt’n’Shake crisps I was happy.

  We’d cycle our bikes around the caravan site while Mum and Dad sunbathed. I loved bikes. My first was a little silver model that had clearly been constructed for a much younger rider, but it suited my purposes to a T. I could reach the pedals and, to me at least, it felt like the fastest thing in the world.

  I usually found myself quite frustrated that we’d come all this way and now all Mum and Dad wanted to do was sit there and do nothing. Nothing whatsoever. “Don’t you want to do something?” I’d ask. “Anything?” Now I’m a parent myself, I know where they were coming from, just how precious and restorative the act of doing nothing, just sitting and looking at the view, can be.

  In the evenings we’d play board games, especially Monopoly, usually while listening to Radio Two. Very often this would be inside the caravan because it was raining outside. It was a very simple way of holidaying and if that sounds a little depressing to read now, it wasn’t at all. I loved every single moment.

  It scares me just how much “stuff” there is to keep today’s generation busy on holiday, such as PlayStations, DVDs, satellite TV, mobile phones. None of these things existed in our Monza almost thirty years ago. There was just the four of us, a deck of cards, Radio Two, and the rain.

  We mainly stuck to England although I do recall seeing an awful lot of ruined Welsh castles during one especially damp and misty trip. We also once bravely journeyed to Scotland, where we spent two days in the freezing rain before quickly heading south again as fast as the Monza would allow. We never returned.

  Dad wasn’t so keen on crowds on holiday so we avoided busy beaches. When he selected a caravan site he didn’t look to see if it had the kid-friendly things such as a playground or a nearby fair, horse rides and so on. The important thing for him was that it was adjacent to a pub. Country pubs often used to have a field next door that they’d let out to caravanners, guaranteeing them a steady trade of fatigued parents and overexcitable children. Dad would then be able to enjoy the luxury of a leisurely lunch in a pub before swaying back to the caravan for a good long afternoon’s stare at the scenery.

  It wasn’t long after we returned from another caravanning holiday in 1983 that the newly renamed Return of the Jedi (George felt this new title was more in keeping with Jedi philosophy) was ready to be shown, and on the Sunday before the world premiere we went to the cast and crew screening at the Marble Arch Odeon, London.

  Goose bumps rose as the main titles rolled and I watched in utter fascination and amazement as the images began to appear. Elstree was utterly convincing as Endor, a thousand times better than I thought possible. Endor and the Ewok Village looked a lot darker than I remembered (we had been filming under very strong studio lights) and this darkness made it all look so much more realistic.

  I noticed that a lot of scenes had been cut – there was one where I found and fired a Stormtrooper’s blaster that hadn’t made it—but I was delighted to see the bolas scene and even more delighted by the roar of laughter that erupted from the audience when I took a tumble. It had been worth the pain. I was also amazed to hear Wicket speaking in an alien language – I hadn’t heard it until then.b And no one ever called the Ewoks “Ewoks” in the film. Han Solo called them “furballs” a few times. But no one referre
d to them as “Ewoks.” No one had an explanation as to why; it just turned out that way.

  Before I knew it the credits were rolling – and then there it was:

  Wicket: WARWICK DAVIS.

  Very cool.

  The film was a huge success, critically (although some reviewers thought the Ewok victory over the Empire stretched credibility somewhat. Credibility? Come on, this is Star Wars, people!) and financially – it grossed over $250 million from a $32 million budget.

  Meanwhile, school loomed like the Death Star over the end of the summer holidays. I was thirteen and due to start my secondary education at the City of London Freeman’s School in Surrey. It was big in every sense of the word. The distance between classrooms could be over a mile (at least that’s how it seemed to me) and the textbooks, when stacked in a pile, towered over my head. I couldn’t carry them so I got a trolley and I sprinted the vast distance between lessons, my cart bumping behind me as I went.

  The first day was a blur. There were plenty of curious stares and some surprised looks when a voice said loudly from knee height, “Excuse me! Coming through here!” but everyone was very pleasant and I was never bullied once.

  Word gradually leaked out that I’d been in Jedi and I received a certain degree of attention as a result. When you’re my height it’s strangely hard to hide, so the best way for me to cope was to embrace my fellow pupils’ curiosity. If there was one thing I’d learned from Jedi, apart from Ewokese, it was to be myself. As Ray my surfer dude teacher had said: “People will like you for who you are, Warwick. There’s no need for acting in the real world.” I made loads of great friends at secondary school, many of whom I’m still in touch with now.

  As well as friends I also attracted my very own stalker: Daniel. He was already over six feet tall, skinny as a rake, into heavy metal, with long, long fair hair and always, always clad in black (imagine a young Stephen Merchant, but with longer, stragglier hair). He was also obsessed with Star Wars and with Princess Leia in particular. To say he had a huge crush on Carrie Fisher was an understatement.

  “Awight there?”

  “Hello,” I replied cautiously. Daniel looked so extraordinary to me I didn’t know what to make of him.

  “So . . . er,” he said.

  “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 indecency. 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.