Connie's Warwick Davis Fanpage and Leprechaun Center

IGN: Warwick Davis

Warwick Davis

Article by Spence D., formerly on the IGN for Men website, March 2000

Part 1

We sit down with the head Leprechaun and talk Ewoks, films, and buckle shoes.

Amongst horror and sci-fi aficionados Warwick Davis is something of a cinematic legend. And rightfully so. He’s portrayed an Ewok in Return of the Jedi, was the title character in Ron Howard’s epic fantasy Willow, snagged no less than 3 roles in Episode 1, and has been in numerous other fantasy oriented productions.

But perhaps Davis’ most recognizable role to date has been that of the malevolently mischievous Leprechaun in the popular on-going B-movie franchise of the same name.

To help celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, IGN For Men tracked down Mr. Davis and got the inside skinny on the nasty little green man who has become as much a popular film icon as Chucky, Freddy, Jason, and Michael.

IGN For Men: How did you fall into the role of the Leprechaun?

Warwick Davis: Well, the first movie was done ... I forget when that was now, it was kind of ’91, I think it was when we shot that. It was the writer Mark Jones who created the character. He’d seen me in Willow and kind of thought I might be quite good for the role, but they had second thoughts about sending it because they’d seen Willow and thought ‘Well he’s too nice, he’s not gonna want to do this kind of thing.’ But they eventually sent the script through to me anyway in the hope that I might look at it. And I loved it. Up until that point I had never played a baddie, I’d always been the good characters. As an actor, and many other actors will probably say the same thing, to play a baddie is great fun. It allows you to sort of explore the darker side of yourself and just have fun Because there’s no limitation with the character either. Especially the Leprechaun. He’s got no boundaries. You can just be as big as you like and there’s nothing to say that you can’t go there, you know what I mean?

IGN For Men: Oh definitely. Besides, how else are you going to be able to bite ears and toes off?

Warwick Davis: Absolutely! [laughs]. And [the role] just appealed to me. I mean I didn’t quite know then what I was getting myself into. You know, I didn’t know that I would still be 10 years on still doing the movies, but ...

IGN For Men: Well he’s become a Freddy Kruger/Jason type of recurring character.

Warwick Davis: Oh absolutely. I mean it’s become a franchise, you know with five movies now. I’m very proud of them. I mean some people, they’re not everybody’s taste, you know. And a lot of films are better than Leprechaun 5, but it then again it does appeal to an audience and the people who do like it absolutely love it. And they’re basically movies aimed at, you know they’re the type of movies you’d watch and have a peach and a beer and have fun with, you know. They’re never gonna be these huge blockbusters, but I think they’re a lot of fun. And there’s a huge following. Over in Britain here Leprechaun hasn’t really caught on. I mean number 1 has just been released over here on video, which it hadn't before now. And of course they show that quite a lot because it features Jennifer Anniston, who since the filming of that has become very, very well known. But in America I'm always bumping into groups of students at college and stuff who say that every St. Patrick’s Day they get together and drink beer and watch Leprechaun movies [laughs].

IGN For Men: When Mark Jones finally sent you the script did you have to go in for an audition or was the part automatically yours?

Warwick Davis: Well I did. I flew out to America and it was very strange, actually. I’d never experienced anything like this before. I worked with Mark for a couple of days on the character and we sort of threw some ideas about. He told me how he saw it and I kind of worked on some stuff with him. And then I went into Trimark’s offices and I had to kind of audition, but in front all these suits, as I would call them, the executives, studio executives. Which I’d never really done anything quite like that before. It’s normally the director you audition for. But these were the moneymen and they sat around behind tables just sitting there, waiting for me to entertain basically. So I ran a scene with Jennifer Anniston from the film and they obviously gave me the part from that [laughs]. It was good that time because it gave me an idea of what they were after and what I was getting into. And then of course we went into the make-up process and started to look at the designs for that and I got involved Gabe Bartolas, who was the creature effects [guy].

IGN For Men: Well he did the make-up for all five of the films, right?

Warwick Davis: He did, yeah. He’s somebody that really has...I mean I would say that the character of the Leprechaun is kind of a partnership. It’s a team effort between myself and him to bring that character to the screen. You know, I give him just as much credit as I would give myself for this character. He created the look. He is a fantastic artist. I mean the design to start with is wonderful, but he actually, he wasn’t selfish. He didn’t say ‘Okay, this is how I want it to look.’ He actually made it wearable. Do you know what I mean? He could have been so extreme in his design and gave it a great look, but I would never have been able to act through that. He made sure that I could act. The pieces that were glued to me were thin enough that my expressions could still show through. So really the whole thing’s been a team effort and it was great to be reunited again on number 5. I made it clear that I really wanted Gabe to be involved again.

IGN For Men: I read somewhere that the make-up process took three hours to put on.

Warwick Davis: Mmmm, that’s right, yeah.

IGN For Men: So how does that stack up, say compared to the Wicket make-up from Jedi or some of the other creature characters you’ve portrayed?

Warwick Davis: Well, I mean three hours is the longest make-up I’ve ever had. The Ewok, basically was just a suit that you’d slip into in about 5 or 10-minutes and just before filming the head would be put on, which would take 15-seconds to put on. And then at the end of the day you’d just take it off and off you go. But the Leprechaun was a 4 or 5 a.m. start and then an 18-hour day from there and then you’re finishing with a sort of hour-and-a-half clean up at the end of the day. So it’s not an on-and-off type issue. But again, though, it’s a different thing. I mean you have to look at it as a challenge and as sort of an artform in itself, basically. And as I’ve said, I couldn’t have done it without Gabe. I couldn’t really sit through that kind of three hours for weeks at a time with anybody else. We got along very well and had some bizarre conversations, as you do eventually when you run out of things to talk about [laughs].

IGN For Men: It sounds kind of like the relationship you develop with a barber you have gone to for years.

Warwick Davis: Oh certainly! Yeah, you do in the end, yeah. You have to and since then, I mean actually Gabe now, he’s gone on to direct his own movie and make his own movie, which he invited me to be in. It’s called Skinned Deep and it’s now getting sort of ... a few photos are appearing on the Internet and stuff now about it. I’ve still got a little more filming to complete on that for him. It’s a completely crazy thing. I play a character called Plates, who lives in this mad house with this crazy family and he’s just mad about porcelain and plates and he just throws them [around]. It’s completely off the wall, but it will certainly appeal to some people.

IGN For Men: Now I know that you based a lot of Wicket’s movements and distinct characteristics on your pet dog. What did you base the Leprechaun on?

Warwick Davis: [laughs] I don’t know, you know. I started off with a bit of Irish. I will admit that my Irish accent as that Leprechaun is not a true Irish accent. It’s kind of a voice. You know, I’ve tried to get some elements of Irish in there. But you know, I just think of the character as being mischievous. He’s not hell-bent on just killing. The only reason he ends up killing or hurting anyone is because they have taken his gold. You know, if you really stand back and look, he’s just a guy that’s trying to protect this pot of gold. Because at the beginning of every movie somebody gets hold of it and he’ll do anything to get it back and whoever gets in his way will, you know, just be put aside [laughs].

IGN For Men: He’s like the ultimate capitalist.

Warwick Davis: Oh absolutely, yeah, yeah. I mean he’s not a bad guy, but he just will not let anything come between him and his gold.

IGN For Men: So it’s not like you based him on anybody that you know or anything like that?

Warwick Davis: No, not really. I mean there’s nothing in films that I based him on beforehand. Ummm, he’s just kind of fun. I mean I have fun playing the character, so there are probably elements of myself in there. Not the evil elements, but the fun and the wacky kind of side of it. You know, I do have fun with that, so I suppose there’s some of myself in that part of the character.

IGN For Men: I know that you like to collect props from the various films that you’ve been in. So what do you have from the Leprechaun films? I’m sure you have a ton given that there’s been five films.

Warwick Davis: Well no, you see that’s the thing I don’t! The thing I would like from Leprechaun were the shoes. I would love to get hold of the shoes. But they mysteriously disappear after every shoot. I’m sure that they’re the things that other people want. The shoes, to me, are integral to the character. They’re these huge kind of platformed, buckled shoes. You know, they’re about three inches tall, but they give me the walk. When I’ve got those shoes on the character really comes to me. You know I might have the make-up on and everything else, but once I put the shoes on I’m like ‘Yeah, I’m there!’ [laughs].

IGN For Men: Was it difficult to learn walking in those?

Warwick Davis: It was at first. ‘Cause when they first showed [them to me] I was like ‘What the hell? What are you doing?’ But then when I put them on I thought ‘Hang on, there’s something in this.’ It’s a trademark, you know like Freddy Kruger has his nails. So the shoes, to me, become the kind of trademark. The hat and the shoes were the thing that gave the character his trademark, which it needed. Throughout the films we never really changed much. I mean every film, the director obviously wanted to put his mark on it, you know.

IGN For Men: But there was a major costume redesign from L1 to L2. In the first film his suit was really green and he had purplish-red striped stockings. The later films his costume got darker, more sinister.

Warwick Davis: Oh yeah. I prefer the later ones, you see. Gabe and I preferred those, although we didn’t have a lot of say in the costume. Obviously I put my views across, but at the end of the day it’s the costume designer’s job and their responsibility to put on the screen what they want to. But originally, Leprechaun, the first one, was designed as a sort of children’s scary movie, sort of a PG-13 type film, okay? And the whole look and concept was of the kind of cartoony sort of feel to it. The way they lit it, you see. If you watch it with that in mind, you’ll see the colored lighting, which really doesn’t suit the environments. But if you think of it in a cartoon environment, then you’ll see it. And that’s why my pants were that color because they were very bright. But then once they’d edited the movie, they thought ‘No, let’s make this an 18 [R-rated picture]. Then we went back and did a couple of weeks of shooting and did lots of gory inserts and some other scenes to give the film more of a horror flavor. And that’s really how the franchise has continued since then. But yeah, the darker look has been more successful, I think. And in number 5, we actually went for much longer hair. Gabe and I thought, ‘Yeah, let’s go for the real kind of long hair kind of thing.’ Which I like, actually.

IGN For Men: So you dig the Leprechaun with longer hair?

Warwick Davis: Yeah, I thought that was kind of ... if you compare it now, I think the character’s just got a much more darker and meaner look now than he did in the first one.

IGN For Men: In number 5, did Ice-T help you out with that Leprechaun rap you performed at the end of the picture?

Warwick Davis: No he didn’t. The kids did, you know, the other lads in it. They were the ones. I used to go to them for the moves and stuff, you know say ‘How do you stand when you do this’ and ‘Give me some poses.’ You know, that kind of thing. I would ask ‘How do you say this?’ ‘cause it was completely foreign to me. I mean I’d heard, obviously I’ve listened to rap songs and stuff, but to actually try and do it ... I wanted to give it a feel of like the Leprechaun can have a pretty good go at this because I knew my audience would be judging [my performance] and know rap music themselves and so I thought ‘Well I’ve got to get this kind of almost right, otherwise I’m gonna look really silly.’ And it was a challenge, I must say. Because we’re on such a tight schedule, you know on a bigger movie you’re gonna have rehearsal times, I would have probably gone into a studio and recorded the rap song before we shot it so that I would then just mime along to it. But it was basically ‘Quick, go in your dressing room. We’re gonna lay this down on tape.’ And I had to do it there and then. And the next day we shot it, with all the choreography and everything and the make-up and the heat and it just was a lot to work with. But on seeing that sequence I think it turned out pretty good. I haven’t heard the final mix of the music, though.

IGN For Men: It sounds like you did a lot of what Clint Howard calls ‘guerilla filmmaking.’

Warwick Davis: Oh absolutely. Have you spoken to Clint?

IGN For Men: No, not yet. But he’s on my list.

Warwick Davis: He’s fabulous. I had lunch with Ron Howard while I was out doing number 5, you see. It’s a funny story, actually. When I was doing like number 2 I was out there and I went to see Ron while he was doing Apollo 13 you see. And he said ‘What are you doing out here?’ And I said, ‘Well, a Leprechaun movie, Leprechaun 2, I’m doing.’ And he said ‘Oh, you’re doing another one of those?’ And I said ‘Yeah.’ And he said ‘Well, you know, you probably don’t want to do anymore of those.’ Of course I said ‘I won’t do anymore’ [laughs]. Then when I was out there last time I called him up and said ‘Hi Ron, just wondering what you’re up to.’ And he said ‘What are you doing?’ And I said ‘I don’t want to tell you.’ And he said ‘Why not?’ And I replied ‘I just don’t want to tell you, but okay, I’m doing Leprechaun 5 but you know you sometimes have to do stuff ... ’ And he said ‘No, no, it’s fine.’ Then he said ‘My daughter’s boyfriend loves Leprechaun movies, so if it’s alright by him then obviously it’s fine.’ Then he added, ‘You know my brother Clint makes a very good living doing that kind of thing.’ Then I said ‘Yeah, that’s cool.’ [laughs]. He’s a fabulous character actor, he really is.

IGN For Men: Well I mean you’ve got to pay the bills.

Warwick Davis: Well that’s it, you know? I’m an actor, not kind of one of these people who gets a million dollars per film and can look at a script and go ‘Hmmmm, I’m not sure about this one.’ Obviously there will be limits to what I will and won’t do, but I mean these films are kind of ... I know what I’m getting into. They’re a couple of weeks to shoot and you know at the end of the day I have fun. I wouldn’t do anything unless I was enjoying it and I do enjoy acting and the character of the Leprechaun is something I do enjoy.

Look for Part 2 on Monday, when Warwick talks about his current projects, what’s up with Episode 2 and gives us the lowdown on his management company.

Part 2

Warwick talks Episode II, Lord of the Rings, and spills the beans about his management company.

On Friday March 17 (St. Patrick's Day) we spoke with Warwick Davis about his ongoing characterization of the Leprechaun in the successful horror franchise.

Today, we continue our discussion with Warwick, learning about his management company, what he's working on currently, and whether or not he's gotten the call from George Lucas for Episode II.

IGN For Men: Now that we've talked all about the Leprechaun flix, tell me about some of your current projects.

Warwick Davis: I'm working on a children's television series at the moment. And after this, nothing really coming up. No concrete plans at the moment. There's a lot of projects in the pipeline at the moment, scripts that are going about that have not been financed yet and that sort of thing, so nothing's been confirmed. But that's normally what it's like at this time of year.

IGN For Men: So this is what we call actor's downtime, eh?

Warwick Davis: Yeah, it is really. It should be within the next month or so hopefully you're gonna see some things lining up for later on in the year, but as I say there's nothing concrete [at this point]. i was hoping to have had a phone call from Mr. Lucas by now, but nothing's come through yet on Episode II.

IGN For Men: Nothing?

Warwick Davis: Nothing yet, no. He was writing the script still a couple of weeks ago, so I guess they're still finalizing characters and that sort of things. So we shall see [laughs].

IGN For Men: The children's series that you're working on, this isn't that Spy Masters project you've had laying around for a few years now, is it.

Warwick Davis: NO it's not. Spy Master is something that I've written myself and it's barely only a treatment at the moment, it's not a full script. And it's just something that I started 10-15 years ago...actually it was just after the time of Willow, so about 12-years ago. It's one of those ideas that you kind of kick about and eventually somebody will hopefully pick it up and say 'Yeah, let's have a go at this.' SO I'm just waiting for that to happen at the moment. The children's series I'm working on is called Jamboree, it's for sort of really pre-school children. Kind of on a similar line of Sesame Street, really. It teaches children the basics of numbers and all that sort of thing. It's quite nice.

IGN For Men: Are you a principle in it?

Warwick Davis: Yeah, yeah, one of the principle characters. That's what I'm doing at the moment.

IGN For Men: Tell me about your company, Willow Management.

Warwick Davis: Willow Management is an agency representing short actors. Basically I started it with my father-in-law.

IGN For Men: Yeah, I noticed a slight resemblance between your partners name and your wife's maiden name...

Warwick Davis: That's right [laughs]. Yeah, I married his daughter and then we set up the agency. We represent about 80 or so short actors around the world, putting them in film, television, and theater.

IGN For Men: Now the criteria I understand is that the actors must be under five feet tall. You're talking about adult actors, right?

Warwick Davis: Well that's right. There's a couple of child actors on the books, but mainly it's adults. But five feet is the limit. We have actors sending in CVs [ed. note: CV stands for Curricula Vitae or resume for those of us who don't speak Latin] all the time and you know, unless they fit in under the five foot restriction...we would like to represent them, but we feel that we're not gonna be bringing in that sort of work that would apply to them, so we don't want them having false hopes, so we normally say 'Sorry, but you'll have to look elsewhere for you agent' [laughs]. But now we're getting known throughout the world for being the biggest agency for short actors. And the work comes this way, which is really, really good.

IGN For Men: You've, in an essence, capitalized on a niche market.

Warwick Davis: Oh absolutely. There were agents in this country representing short actors, but I don't think that they were given the status they should have been. It was basically they were treated as being dwarves, you know the company would phone up saying 'I need three dwarves' and the agent might say 'Alright, how much?' They weren't given the decent treatment that they should have been. We wanted to turn that around and give them respect and the industry is now...the attitudes have changed, which is really, really nice. We'll turn away things that we don't think are really appropriate for a short actor to be seen in. We sort of screen the projects that come through and if a company is suggesting something we don't feel is appropriate, we'll just say 'We're sorry, we don't think this is right.'

IGN For Men: Are you at all disappointed that the majority of the work thrown your way is either sci-fi or fantasy related?

Warwick Davis: Mmmm, you know, it doesn't bother me and I'll tell you why. I'm an actor and I enjoy working. If employment is given to me in the science fiction/horror/fantasy genres, it really doesn't matter. To me it's work at the end of the day. My attitude might be different in 10-years time, but at the moment I feel very happy when I'm offered something. And fantasy and science fiction are ver, very fascinating types of films to work on anyway, because you get to work in wondrous locations on splendid sets, and you're involved with these fantastic special effects that can now be created. To me that's fascinating and makes the day at work much more interesting than playing a scene in a hamburger bar in a city, for example, if you were cast in a regular film. So I've sort of found job satisfaction from being in these type of films. I mean it will be nice one day to be, you know, just cast as an ordinary kind of guy, wearing ordinary clothes.

IGN For Men: That ideal jeans-n-T-shirt role, eh?

Warwick Davis: Oh absolutely! That would be lovely, just to turn up on the set and nip into my trailer for a kind of 5-minute make-up and I'm ready and at the end of the day just kind of get into the car and go home. But for now I'm happy just to be working in whatever it might be, but it's something I can think about for the future.

IGN For Men: But at the same time, participating in the recreation of say Peter Pan, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Prince Valiant has got to be pretty cool.

Warwick Davis: Oh absolutely. It's very exciting. The artists that you work with throughout the production are wonderful at what they do and they really just bring a great deal of creative talent together and it's fascinating. It takes a lot longer to make a movie like that, as well. There's a huge sort of pre-production processes. If you're involved with a big make-up, if you have a body or head cast where they take a plaster mold of your body and head and then create the make-up on top of that, you know there's a huge process that goes on before hand. It's very fascinating and challenging. IGN For Men: I heard that you auditioned for Lord of the Rings? Warwick Davis: Yeah, I did. I went to London and put a tape down for that, as the part of Gimli. But after I'd done that... I don't think it was a result of my performance [laughs], but a policy was changed on the movie, a decision was made to shrink average sized actors down digitally at a later date. So a British actor of average size got the role that I was going for. It's kind of disappointing and I've spoken to a lot of fans of the books since then and they're kind of disappointed that no short actors were cast, because that's how they see it in their mind's eye when they read the books. They're a little bit skeptical about how it might work. I'm sure they'll [Peter Jackson] pull it off wonderfully, but, you know it's kind of like...I'm a big fan of what George Lucas does and ILM do and the other FX companies, I mean I'm fascinated by what they do. But it might be a glimpse to the future of what is gonna happen. Not just short actors, but are other actors gonna start to be excluded from projects because they can create these things in the computer now, which are actually better than what they can create live on set.

IGN For Men: They probably end up being cheaper, too.

Warwick Davis: That's right. Once the technology is established enough the prices will come down for that sort of thing.

IGN For Men: Well you won't have insurance to worry about with a computer created actor.

Warwick Davis: Absolutely. Computer created characters don't moan and don't throw tantrums, do they? So that might be an option for a producer that he might prefer. But I'm disappointed not to be in that [LotR] because it's a project that I'd heard about for many years and thought 'Well, that could be quite good.' And many people had said to me 'I would love to see you in that,' so I was thinking 'This could be pretty good.' But never mind, we can't worry about it.

IGN For Men: Has the success of Verne Troyer, you know, Mini Me from Austin Powers, had any kind of effect, as far as increasing the awareness of short actors or has it been detrimental? Or is it a non-factor in all of this?

Warwick Davis: Mmmm, well, I will admit at this point I haven't seen Austin Powers 2. I do keep intending to see it since a lot of people have said to me 'Oh, did you see Vern in that?' And I haven't seen it yet. Certainly, as an agency, we had a couple of calls for actors over here to make public appearances in the guise of that character. You know people wanted them to appear at their nightclub, you know, they wanted to have Mini Me there. So there was a certain amount of demand for a time for that sort of thing. But that's kind of subsided now. But I don't think it will have any effect. I don't think it will create a demand for producers to want to cast short actors anymore than if it hadn't happened at all. But the jury's out on that one. I'll have to see the movie first, then I'll be able to make [an educated guess]. But it's great [for Vern]. Obviously I respect his success there and he's done a grand job. But one thing that I certainly learned and was very careful to do was, after Star Wars, for example, you know, doing Wicket at 11-years old, I was like 'Wow, this is great. This could be a career.' But what you mustn't do, whether you're a short actor or any actor, basically, is rely on the thing that originally got you started. And it was my height, I was purely cast in Return of the Jedi because of my size. But if I'd have sat back and thought 'Okay, I'm short. I can do this for a living,' then I wouldn't be talking to you now, I don't think. I'd have faded away . But I thought 'I've got to really work at acting now. I've got to try and think about this as a profession and do it professionally.' Therefore I studied the craft of acting and the craft of filmmaking so I know the whole thing and how it works. And I'm continuing to learn. I don't think as an actor that you can ever stop learning. I watch performances of other actors when I work with them and on other films, as well. I think it's a continual process of learning.

IGN For Men: Speaking of learning, how hard was it to learn the Rodian language in Episode I?

Warwick Davis: Well it wasn't too bad. They sent me a tape, Lucasfilm did beforehand. And on there was Ben Dirt, the sound designer, speaking the dialogue as it should be pronounced. It was very different to the way it looks on paper, so it was good to hear it. So basically it was just a question of learning it and then mimicking the pronunciation that he gave on the set and later on re-dubbing it in the sound studio, because I would sound rather muffled from behind all of that rubber. So we re-dubbed it at a later date. And it was nice of George to ask me to go and do it, rather than just get the actor who was filling in for many voices to do it.

IGN For Men: So it was kind of like learning Spanish by tape, for example?

Warwick Davis: Oh basically, yeah. I just phonetically learned the pronunciation. I mean I couldn't speak to you in fluent Huttese now, because I don't understand it. But they do design a dictionary. It's not just random language. There is actually a dictionary that's designed for that language and also Ewokese and all the other languages in Star Wars. It's not just a random kind of selection of words.

IGN For Men: What was your experience with 10th Kingdom like?

Warwick Davis: I haven't seen it myself, yet, but I can't wait to see it. But my experience on that was wonderful. I had to audition, obviously, with other actors over here for the role. But the character of Acorn was written as a short character. It was done by the same writer who did the adaptation of Gulliver's Travels, you know, the one with Ted Danson. I was in that, as well, so I think in the back of his mind he was thinking 'Well Warwick could do that,' which was nice. It was a great character to play. I was this convict with a very nasty scar over one eye, so I only had vision from one eye. I was very rough and ready, so I had to grow a kind of stubbly beard. Which was kind of interesting because I was shooting another movie at the same time where I didn't need as much stubble, so I had to think carefully ahead to know when I would shave and not shave, so it was quite a challenge, that was in itself. But we shot in Pinewood Studios here in London and in Austria, as well. We do this kind of Great Escape tunneling scene where we dig a tunnel and escape from the prison. And I worked with the actor Jimmy Nail. He's very well known in this country for various sit-coms. Fantastic to work with and I learned a lot from him. And I think it's an amazing production, the money that they spent on it, and the uniqueness of the concept I think makes it very special. It was a huge, great production. It was pretty fun and I'm very proud of that one. Plus it's nice to have something that's kind of current now. When you work on something you move onto the next thing. But it's nice to have that coming along now as it puts you back in kind of the public eye again for a little while. You never know if it will spark an idea off in someone's head and the next project can come rolling in.

Spence D. would take a call from George Lucas pretty much any time of the day.