“Everybody out!” the driver yelled, triggering a mad scramble for the doors.
Fortunately, the tractor managed to stop just in time and towed the bus back onto the road.
Although I was a bit nervous about flying I thought it would be fantastic to fly over what had to be some of the most spectacular mountain scenery in the world. My excitement was quickly replaced by anxiety, however, when I saw what we would be traveling in.
“That’s it?” The chopper had four seats. To me it looked like a flying lawnmower. Ron and Val were already on board. When I climbed into the capsule I looked up at the rotors that had started to turn above me and tried to stop thinking about the bolts that were holding them to the chopper’s body.
I glanced at the pilot, a large mustachioed macho-looking American. “Don’t worry,” the production assistant said as he helped me into the chopper, “Bud here flew hundreds of missions in ’Nam, he knows what he’s doing.”
Before I had time to digest this fascinating new piece of information, Bud, who was chewing furiously on some gum, pulled back on the stick and took us straight up at a hundred miles an hour.d I felt my spine compressing and my shoulders sinking. “Great,” I thought, “by the time we get there I’m going to be even shorter.”
It was incredible flying in New Zealand. I never realized it had so many mountains, something I came to be very aware of as every time we flew over one we were hit by a tremendous updraft shooting us up a couple of hundred feet higher in a stomach-squeezing vertical climb.
One time, when it was just Bud and me, we were forced to land due to bad weather. Bud, bless him, put us down in the middle of a swamp – luckily it was one of the firmer bits. It was truly amazing to be standing somewhere so incredibly remote, somewhere no human had ever been before.
Even though I was probably the only person in the entire world who didn’t have to, I instinctively ducked my head whenever I climbed out of the helicopter. Val crouched down beside me and said, “You really don’t need to do that, you know.”
A short while later Val and I were sat on a tiny, frictionless, and brakeless steel sled on top of a New Zealand mountain. I stared down at the glacier that seemed to stretch off into infinity below us. Quoting Han Solo, Princess Leia, and C-3PO, I said, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
In the film, the bad guys were chasing us and we were supposed to escape them by sliding down the mountain on a shield. I had thought this scene sounded like fun – until I saw the glacier as we swept up the mountain in the helicopter. All thoughts of the rotors falling off and of us plummeting to our doom were suddenly forgotten. What was the location scout on? Did he have any idea how long and steep this was?
I did have a stunt double who sometimes covered for me in distance shots. I say doubled, but Robert actually looked nothing like me, although he was roughly the same height. He was also the most accident prone and physically fragile man I’ve ever met. He disappeared down a hole in a field when we shot a sunset scene at Skywalker Ranch. He also nearly scalped himself when he caught his wig in a tree, no little achievement for someone less than four feet tall. Robert would trip over anything and everything, once falling over his own spear during a campfire scene – he almost turned himself into a shish kebab.
Goodness knows what would have happened to him on that mountain but, fortunately for Robert, Ron wanted the camera to be on the sled, to show that this was actually us going down the mountain.
“It’ll be fine,” Val said, but his customary confidence was a little lacking this time.
I got as far as “Maybe we shouldn’t” – before Ron yelled “Action!” and someone gave us a good running shove in the manner of the bobsled, except they weren’t silly enough to hop on for the ride.
Some of the crew had spent a few days helpfully polishing the ice for us, so we’d have a smooth and fast journey. They really shouldn’t have bothered.
Cameras positioned all the way down the glacier captured our wide-eyed, non-acted terror as we zipped by at Mach 2, screaming at the top of our voices. Sparks flew behind us as we sheared through the ice in a blur. It was like the scene from Star Wars when the Millennium Falcon jumps into hyperspace and the stars become blurry streaks. Every so often I’d spot a cameraman desperately trying to keep us in shot as we flew past.
I screamed until I ran out of air and then kept on going silently, my mouth and eyes locked open. I could see where the ice ended and the rocky mountainside began. Luckily, someone had had the bright idea of piling up a mountain of loose powder snow right in our path and we hit it at the speed of sound, disappearing in a whumpf, shooting a little mushroom cloud of snowflakes into the sky.
After we’d been dug out, Val and I hugged. “We’re alive!” he shouted, and whooped with relief. I tried to unbend my fingers, with which I’d been clutching the sled. It wasn’t easy.
Ron was in radio contact with the cameraman at the bottom and I heard him say excitedly, “That was great, let’s go again!”
Val and I looked at one another. Then we looked back up the mountain. “You have to be kidding me. There’s no way,” Val said. Nonetheless, still shaking, we climbed on a waiting snowmobile and were driven back up the slippery slope and did exactly the same thing all over again. The terror did not lessen in the slightest.
And then that, as it turned out, was Val’s last ride on the sled. He refused point blank to get back on the thing. “I’ve already fallen off two horses and nearly broken my damn foot on this movie, I’m not going to break my neck for you as well!”
It was true. On one of the first days of filming in New Zealand a steel cage fell on Val’s foot. He had hopped off the set in fury and refused to come out of his trailer. I watched from my own trailer window as first Ron and then George tried to persuade him to come out, only to be sent packing with a string of expletives. It took them half a day, but they got there in the end. If you look closely, you can see Val walking with a slight limp in some scenes.
As is typical for movies of this scale, there were quite a few accidents of this sort – Joanne stuck her sword in a stuntman’s foot during a tavern scene, for example. There were also a few “incidents” outside of work. We weren’t really supposed to engage in risky activities while under contract but when we were in New Zealand about a dozen of us liked to go ice-skating at an outdoor rink. One evening we formed a line and started skating in circles around the rink. We got really good at this and started to build up some momentum. Little David Steinberg,e who played Willow’s best friend, Meegosh, was on the outside end of the line and was therefore traveling faster than anyone else. Soon, we were traveling so fast that he was no longer able to hold on and his glove came off in the hand of the person he was holding onto.
I caught a brief glimpse of David zipping by at the speed of sound across the ice, his face frozen in terror as he shot toward the barrier that surrounded the rink. I half expected to find a David-shaped hole in the barrier, but instead it had done a very good job of being a barrier and David had bounced back off it and ended up lying face down on the ice. Fortunately, he only needed a few stitches to his head and his bushy eyebrows covered those up.
That proved to be the end of our ice-skating exploits.
Although Val had had enough I, on the other hand, remained a glutton for punishment and agreed to go down a third time with a camera fixed to the front of the sled, looking back toward me to make sure they got some nice close-ups of my “frozen-in-terror” look.
A stunt double was found to replace Val and, as a bonus treat, we were told that we would be towed down the glacier by a stunt skier. “You’ll be fine,” Ron said, “he’s a real pro, he can do it backward no problem.”
“Did he just say backward?” I asked.
Sure enough, the skier pointed himself the wrong way down the mountain and set off while filming us with a Panavision camera, whizzing from side-to-side, narrowly missing boulders to make it “more exciting” and adding some all new “I’m going to d
ie!” expressions to my repertoire.
As an actor and person, Val was amazing; he had a depth to him that’s hard to describe. He really relished any chance to take his job to the limit; sometimes the production team would try and take advantage of this, not maliciously, but just because he was so good.
Years later I asked him about all the bad press coverage he got; he genuinely didn’t know why it was they seemed to pick on him so often. He told me they hardly ever quoted him correctly.
Although he could sometimes come across as quite moody he was extremely mischievous and he never let me take things too seriously. His most-used word was “fun.” “Let’s have a little fun, Warwick – oh sorry, no offense!”
Val loved his movie horse (a proper racing stallion) to be pumped up so it looked exciting on camera and he said I should do the same with mine.
“Heh, good luck with that,” I told him.
My own trusty steed was a former racehorse that had literally been rescued from the dog-food factory; it had been chosen for me especially because it was ancient, on its last legs and, no matter what you did, it simply wouldn’t budge.
Nevertheless, Val knew every trick in the book when it came to horse riding and he often managed to wind my poor old nag up so much that it bounded off toward the horizon, with me bouncing in the saddle, screaming, “You-ou-ou ba-a-as-ta-a-ard!”
When we were filming on other horses back in the UK, they were trained to go on the word “Action!” so mine would take off down the road at the start of every scene until I asked if we could start using another phrase such as “Begin acting!” The Shetland ponies were the worst. They were far feistier than normal-sized horses – like a terrier – and once they got going they really liked to try and throw me off. I suppose at least there wasn’t so far to fall. There must be something about people and animals that come in small packages; what we lack in height we make up for in pluck.
I was sorry to leave New Zealand. I’m a big fan of extreme and snowy weather and it had plenty of both. It was also a truly beautiful and unspoiled country. If it wasn’t for the fact that I need to be in the UK for work, then I’d be seriously tempted to move there.
It was back to Britain with a bump as filming continued in a Welsh quarry in Snowdonia – which also happened to be the coldest place on earth. We filmed the exteriors of the Nockmaar Castle and the transformation scenes in which the evil sorceress Queen Bavmorda, played by Jean Marsh, turned us into pigs.
The location was stunning but very dark, thanks to an abundance of slate and the fact it was situated between a lake and Elidir Fawr mountain. There was also an eerie rock formation known as the Lady of Snowdon because it had more than a passing resemblance to a human face.
We spent most of our time freezing to death in a caravan with no electricity. Poor Peter, another one of my stunt doubles, was so cold he wrapped himself in trash bags. We were so bored that we spent our days throwing playing cards at melons – if you threw them just right then you could get them to stick into the melon. Eventually we got so good at this we were able to flick them into cracks between cupboards and the joins in shelves.
One day, after filming had moved back to London, Val tapped me on the shoulder.
“What’re you doing tonight?” he said with a grin.
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Good. Tonight you’re coming with me and having dinner with Tom Cruise and Mimi Rogers.”
Holy crap!
Tom was without a doubt the number one star in Hollywood at the time (and the world’s most successful little person). We ate in a restaurant in Covent Garden and while I’m sure the food and venue were both fantastic, I have no recollection of either. I was a complete unknown at this stage, and just seventeen years old. Tom and Mimi said “Hello” and I mumbled something like “Hmfglsltmu, heh, heh.” The waiters were just as starstruck and they spent the evening walking into pillars, dropping plates, and colliding with each other as they passed.
All I could do was watch in fascination and with an open mouth as Tom and my mate Val reminisced about the Top Gun days, and all the jokes they used to play on one another, while other diners did a bad job of trying not to stare. Sadly, I can’t remember the details. It all went over my head. There was a slight quibble as to who would pay the bill – although there was no way they were going to let me pay so I politely dropped out and let them fight over it.
I checked my watch and glanced out of the window anxiously. Mum was supposed to pick me up; she was under strict instructions not to embarrass me by parking her black and yellow Citroen 2CV in front of the restaurant’s glass windows and to wait in a nearby street.
“Something wrong, Warwick?” Val asked.
“Not at all,” I replied in my finest “Mr. Cool” voice. “It’s been amazing but I’ve got an early start tomorrow. I’ll just head off now and, you know, grab a cab from Covent Garden.”
We said our good-byes and I headed toward the main door. It was then, with rising horror, that I saw it. My mum’s 2CV slowed to a halt and pulled up right outside. I looked behind me. Tom, Val, and Mimi still seemed deep in conversation about the bill. A waiter held the door open for me.
“Good evening, sir,” he said.
I looked back at him, checked the table one more time, and sprinted out through the door at top speed, yanked the car door open, and performed a commando-style dive into the back, yelling, “Go, go, go!”
Mum floored the accelerator and we roared off at five miles an hour through Covent Garden.
“Now what was all that about?” Mum asked.
I glared at her. Mothers!
I just hoped that Tom, Mimi, and Val hadn’t turned in time to witness my extraordinary exit.
Willow was granted the honor of a Royal Premiere at Leicester Square in December 1988, attended by the Prince and Princess of Wales. I was driven there in a Bentley and felt every inch the superstar as it rolled up to the red carpet and I emerged to a hundred-flashgun salute.
Ever the conservative (by now) eighteen-year-old, I’d opted for the white dinner suit. Being the star of the film, I was seated next to Princess Diana, the most famous woman in the world; she could hardly see me behind my giant tower of popcorn.
She was absolutely charming and looked every inch the princess in her white evening gown, which sparkled in the glow of the screen. I watched her out of the corner of my eye and she laughed in all the right places. She came across as fun-loving and carefree; there were no obvious signs that her seven-year marriage to Prince Charles was in turmoil.
Afterward, Princess Di and I had a little chat. Shyly, she said, “You give us princesses a rough ride!” (The baby I was carrying throughout the film was a princess.) I did her the honor of turning bright red and mumbling incoherently.
After that, cast and crew went off for dinner at the Waldorf – Mum, Dad, and sister Kim came, too. Oddly enough, just by coincidence, I was seated next to Sam. We’d still barely met. She looked absolutely stunning in a gorgeous red dress. We even looked like a couple, me with my white dinner jacket and red handkerchief. But Sam was there on a date with Pete, the stunt double who was adept at throwing playing cards into melons. As we chatted I managed to undo some of the damage the News of the World had done to my character and did my best to erase my “brat” image.
To promote Willow I flew from city to city all across Europe – Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen, Oslo, you name it, I was there doing press junkets for Willow. It was a freezing cold December and I was somewhere different every day. Soon, I’d forgotten who I’d spoken to and what I’d said to them and constantly contradicted myself. I didn’t mind, I loved everything – except for the food. Everybody always wanted me to try the local specialty but I simply can’t stand foreign food. I made the mistake of saying, “All I want is a nice piece of Cheddar” while in Paris, the land of the stinky cheese, which didn’t go down too well. This became my mantra as we traveled from city to city and various gofers were dispatched to hunt down a p
iece of Cheddar or near substitute for Mr. Bigshot.
While in one European capital, my ice-skating friend David Steinberg stopped by my hotel room to say “hello.”
We chatted and caught up for a few minutes before he asked to use the bathroom.
“Sure,” I replied.
He returned a few minutes later. “Gosh, Warwick, that’s impressive.”
“What is?”
“They’ve installed a sink for you so you can wash your hands.”
He’d only gone and washed his hands in the bidet.
“Oh yes, they do that for me now I’m a star,” I replied, trying to conceal a wicked grin.
“Wow, that’s amazing.”
It was. Did David think a crack team of plumbers and tilers raced into each hotel before my arrival to install a new “sink”? I like to imagine that for years after, whenever he arrived in a hotel room with a bidet, David thought, “Wow, Warwick’s been here!”f
Size Matters Not: The Extraordinary Life and Career of Warwick Davis Page 10
