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Lucasfilm Fan Club: Warwick Davis An Unlikely Hero (Part 1)

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Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. In the past, though, we have been led to believe that only the biggest and strongest of us are the true heroes. But size and strength aren't everything. And no one know that better than 3'4" tall Warwick Davis, who portrays the unlikely hero, Willow Ufgood, in the new George Lucas/Ron Howard film Willow.

As Warwick is quick to point out, Willow may be small in stature but stands tall in character, courage and compassion.

"Willow is an ordinary guy, a farmer, who is thrust into extraordinary circumstances," he says. "I think he's a likeable character because there's a little of him in all of us.

"Actually, I can see a lot of me in him, too. First of all, he's short," he says with a giggle. "But Willow is a magician and a farmer--a failing farmer, I think. Magic is actually his hobby. He's a family kind of person. And any situation that comes up he can deal with in some way. He can face anything."

Warwick, himself, had to face numerous obstacles in finally winning the role of Willow. He recalls the numerous auditions he went through in the beginning.

"First of all, I received a phone call and went down to Elstree Studios to meet Ron and George. We sat and chatted for a while. Then, I was called up for an audition in London. I went through about three or four auditions in London for the part. I then went to America and did readings with people who were auditioning for the part of Madmartigan. A week after that, George and Ron told me I had the part. But I think they were testing me with all those auditions. They were testing my endurance!

"Originally," the 17 year old actor adds, "I heard that the character of Willow was supposed to be about 40 years old. So I imagined Willow as this guy with little round glasses and a beard. I said, 'How am I going to play someone like that?' I was imagining playing an older character but they actually reduced Willow's age so I could play him. But I really didn't know much about the film in the auditions, I would only get pages of the script. First of all, I thought that everybody in the film was played by little people. I didn't think there would be any tall people in it. I got the cage scene first where the Nelwyns meet Madmartigan and then I realized there were taller characters."

Another aspect about the character of Willow that Warwick had to face was playing a married man with two children--something the young actor admits to having no experience in at this early stage of his life.

"It felt pretty odd, really," he says with a smile. "I was a bit worried about that when we were doing it because I didn't want to be unconvincing. It was difficult to do that when I hadn't really experienced it. I sort of had to imagine that I was a dad. I hope it works and that the audience is convinced. The kids are really sweet. Ron and George spent a lot of time with the casting of the film and I think they did a good job, especially with the children. You need a good cast and a good script to make a good movie, and I think Willow had both."

In the film, Willow teams up with the adventurous rogue Madmartigan in order to deliver the baby, Elora Danan, to the kingdom of Tir Asleen. Off screen, Warwick Davis says the camaraderie between him and his co-star Val Kilmer was always there and was one of the highlights of working on the picture.

"Val was great. He's really a nice guy. He was always messing about on the set, making me laugh. He would joke around all the time. He was fun to work with. Half the time, he was wearing those women's clothes for the scenes. You know, in the film, Madmartigan dresses up as a woman in order to escape from the tavern. During all the wagon chase filming, he was wearing those clothes and had lipstick on. I was a bit worried about him at that time," he says jokingly. "It was really good fun to work with him, though. He's got a great sense of humor."

Warwick also enjoyed watching the characters of Willow and Madmartigan grow to like each other on the screen.

"I think they developed a good friendship by the end of the movie," he states. "Throughout the film, they sort of have a husband/wife relationship in the sense that Willow is always nagging him. He's shouting at him a lot but it's friendly shouting. In the last scene, they give each other a handshake and you get the feeling that they've become good friends."

The general feeling on the set of Willow was friendship. Warwick relates that working with the talents of Ron Howard and George Lucas could have been intimidating but that both men made the cast and crew feel comfortable and relaxed.

"Ron was great! He's a lot like he was on Happy Days. He's very much like that, I think. He's a really good director and because he was an actor he knows what an actor goes through and the kind of things an actor feels. He listens to what you say, too. If I had an idea about something, I would tell him and he would say 'Yeah, that's good!' There are a couple of shots in the film that I actually thought of and they used them. I was quite excited about that. Ron really worked with me in rehearsal about the character of Willow, and that's when the character really developed. Ron told me, 'He's a farmer and an ordinary kind of person. He's the kind of character that somebody in the audience would like to know.' And that's what we tried to achieve with the character.

"George was on the set quite a bit just overlooking everything and seeing how it was coming along," he continues. "He would do things like checking the matte paintings and so forth for Ron, since he couldn't do everything because he was directing. One day when George was there we had a water fight." he recalls laughing. "It was on a wet set so I was soaking anyway but George was dry--he ended up wet as well however. He was on the set quite a bit, though, and I would chat with him about different things."

One element that Willow is certainly not lacking in is action. The movie is filled with exciting battles and fast paced adventure. Although there were a considerable amount of stuntmen for the action scenes, Warwick was still involved in many of the action sequences, which he enjoyed tremendously.

"I really liked the action in the movie," he says. "I would say to Ron, 'When am I going to do my next bit of fighting?' I enjoyed doing the wagon chase because that was all action. I didn't like the horses much, though. I had ridden my sister's horse a bit before the film but I wasn't too happy when it ran off down the road with me! Weeks before the filming of Willow started, I had to take riding lessons every day. But the horses were very good and all the trainers and stuntmen were really helpful."

One of the scenes in the film that was as exciting to shoot as it was to watch was the snow sled sequence involving Willow, Madmartigan and the baby.

"We had this expert skier who was skiing backwards with a camera while we were being pulled down the hill by another skier going the speed that it looks," Warwick explains. "We were going pretty fast! We also did some shots where the camera was sort of clamped onto the front of the sled with the skier pulling us. Each time we did it, it was snowing pretty hard. I remember as we were sledding down the mountain pretty fast, I saw this hill ahead of us and thought, 'Oh, that's a shallow hill, this will be easy.' We were going about 20 mph, Val and I were acting away and looking scared and suddenly the skier pulling us dropped down this hill between all these rocks and from then on we weren't acting anymore! I was terrified," he says with a laugh. "We were shooting down this hill, hitting all these bumps, and ended up on this frozen lake at the bottom. We had to do that twelve times! I was a nervous wreck at the end of that, it was very frightening. There was also some tricky stuff where I had to steer the sled on my own as I come crashing through the door of a house. Looking back on all of that, though, it was quite fun."

For many days on the set, Warwick was drenched as a good number of scenes required rain. Yet, as with all jobs, there are certain things that have to be done that nobody really wants to do. And in film, there are scenes that are shot so many times they become almost unbearable.

"There's a lot of rain in this film and I was wet a lot," he remembers. "In the queen's tower, at the climax of the film, they had this steam coming out of the floor and every time we did a scene they would say 'Start the rain!' After a week of that it sort of gets to you because you're soaking wet all day. The stuff we did in New Zealand was also hard because it was very cold.

"Actually," he continues, "the worst thing I did was a rain scene in the camp. I got wet and cold and I remember that well. We were shooting at night. We were in Wales at this slate quarry which was supposed to be the Nockmaar castle. It was very different shooting at night. I had been asleep in my caravan and they said 'We need this shot.' I got up and did it but I can hardly remember the scene because I was half asleep when I did that shot! So when people watch the film, there will be this night shot outside the tent and you'll see me with these glazed eyes, half asleep!"

Along with all the physical problems of shooting Willow, Warwick's true acting abilities were tested in his scenes with the 9 inch Brownies. In the Star Wars saga, the actors had to react to ships and creatures, but would later be added with a technique called blue screening. This was also the case in Willow, except for the Brownies: two characters shot entirely in post-production. Because of this, Warwick and the other actors had to try and relate and work with two actors that were never really there.

"When we were doing the scenes with the Brownies, they would line up the shot with these little dolls and then take them away when we shot and I would have nothing to act with, really. Some of the scenes, I would have to pick one up and I was actually picking nothing up. It was quite difficult to do the scenes with the Brownies. Some of the scenes I would have something like five pieces of invisible thread attached to me so they would be pulling bits of my clothing as if they were climbing on me. It was really amazing. I went to America to do some of the effects stuff and blue screen work and I met one of the actors playing the Brownies then and he was about 6 feet tall! It was really weird to meet them when you know in the film they're only going to be 9 inches tall."

Finding 9 inch tall people to play the Brownies was easy: they simply took regular size actors and had ILM shrink them to their desired height. But that wasn't possible for the Nelwyns. The producers of Willow found themselves scouring Europe in order to find enough little people to populate the Nelwyn village. One of the most memorable experiences for Warwick Davis was the day they used over 200 little people for the Nelwyn fair sequence.

"It was incredible," he says enthusiastically. "I didn't realize that there were so many small people around the world. There 200 people on the set that day and they were all from different countries. It was very chaotic because of the language problems. The assistant director had to get a few translators in to try and direct everybody. But it was really a great day! We did one take and it must've lasted five minutes. It's a wide shot of Willow doing magic on the stage and everyone was dancing and so on. About three minutes into it, you could really get into it and you really believed you were there in the Nelwyn village."

In the film industry, little people have never fared very well. They have usually been relegated to roles as circus freaks or have been so made-up that they become unrecognizable. Yet, with Willow, a milestone has at last been reached. Now, for the first time, we can see little people as they really are--just like everyone else. But, for Warwick Davis, are there any advantages, or disadvantages, to being shorter in stature?

He pauses, then grins. "Well, before I was 18 I could get into 18 films without being asked questions because they were afraid they would be rude! I think it's more of an advantage than a disadvantage, really. You can sort of trick people in so many ways! It's funny! But I don't mind being small. You don't think that you're any different. It's also given me a lot of opportunities. I don't think I would even have become an actor if I hadn't been small. I probably would have been doing some boring office job or something. I don't think I would have been involved with George's films. It's amazing what's happened to me."