Production Notes
Enter the world of "Willow".
Journey to the far corners of your imagination, to a land of myth and magic, where dream and reality live side by side...to a place that never existed, a time that never was. It is a world where a young man named Willow lives out an adventure that explodes beyond the boundaries of his own hopes and fears.
Master storyteller George Lucas, who brought the "Star Wars" trilogy and "Indiana Jones" series to the screen, joins forces with director Ron Howard ("Cocoon," "Splash") to bring "Willow" to audiences everywhere. It is a tale of excitement and laughter, of brotherhood and personal virtue, of hope and heroism, and most of all pure adventure.
Based on an original story by Lucas, the film stars Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, Warwick Davis as Willow, Jean Marsh, Patricia Hayes, Gavan O'Herlihy, Billy Barty, David Steinberg, Pat Roach, Julie Peters and Mark Northover. Nigel Wooll is producing from a screenplay by Bob Dolman. George Lucas is executive producer.
Filmed on location in the rugged countryside of England, the haunting moors of northern Wales and the glacial wilderness of New Zealand, "Willow" brings together some of filmmaking's most talented craftsmen, including production designer Allan Cameron ("Aliens," "1984" and "The French Lieutenant's Woman"); cinematographer Adrian Biddle ("Aliens," "The Princess Bride"); special prosthetic makeup designer Nick Dudman ("The Empire Strikes Back," "Superman II" and "Return of the Jedi"); and Grammy-winning composer James Horner ("Cocoon," "The Name of the Rose," "An American Tail"). Along with the considerable special effects talents of Lucasfilm's own Industrial Light and Magic division, these filmmakers and actors have created an unforgettable moviegoing experience.
"'Willow' has been in my mind for about 15 years," says Lucas. "It evolved out of some of the research I was doing for 'Star Wars' and my interest in fantasy at that time."
"Willow" is indeed filled with fantasy, epic adventure, action and danger, but at its center is a story of friendship, of commitment. It centers on Willow Ufgood (Warwick Davis), a member of the Nelwyn race, little people who are primarily farmers and miners. They live in a neutral area of peace, but are surrounded by a land at war. The fighters are the big people, the Daikinis, who are engaged in a fierce battle of good vs. evil. The fates call upon Willow and an unlikely ally, outcast Daikini warrior Madmartigan (Val Kilmer), to match wits and strength with the forces of evil in all their wondrous shapes and sizes, in particular with the sinister and all-powerful sorceress, Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh).
Willow's adventure begins when he finds a baby, Elora Danan, by the shore of the river near his home. It is a very special Daikini baby, destined to cause the downfall of the wicked Queen Bavmorda. But to do so, the little baby must live, and it is Willow's overwhelming task to take her to the good castle of Tir Asleen, where she will be safe from Bavmorda's power.
But the road is long, made treacherous by Queen Bavmorda, her daughter Sorsha (Joanne Whalley), and the Nockmaar armies, led by the foreboding General Kael (Pat Roach). With the help of the Nelwyn village's High Aldwin (Billy Barty), Madmartigan (Val Kilmer), two 9-inch high brownies (Kevin Pollak and Rick Overton) and the good sorceress Fin Raziel (Patricia Hayes), Willow perseveres in his journey.
Along the way he and Madmartigan find they are more alike than is first suspected. "Madmartigan is a warrior on skid row when he first meets Willow," says Kilmer, who plays the skillful, but undisciplined soldier. "He's seen better days. And he doesn't realize when he meets this little Nelwyn that Willow is going to change his life and, somehow, reform him. Willow, at 3'4", is, in a way, Madmartigan's big brother."
"They share a very tricky relationship," agrees Warwick Davis. "They continually argue and it is only as the story progresses that a mutual respect develops."
For Kilmer, playing a mythical character created no problems, although he found the filming different from what he expected. "Actually sitting on a horse playing a scene is very different from sitting in a rehearsal room. You discover several things that are essential to telling the story that couldn't be anticipated--such as acting in torrential rain." He also trained with sword expert Bill Hobbs, who taught him the finer points of swordsmanship.
"We wanted to find a style of swordfighting that was different and we came up with something that has elements of juggling in it," explains Kilmer. "We were looking for a kind of style that was original while combining things that George Lucas liked in the Japanese culture. So we developed a style for Madmartigan that combined elements of Samurai and juggling."
But co-star Joanne Whalley is quick to point out that the characters in "Willow" are not all sword-and-sorcery. "They're real people with very real emotions," she says. "I don't look upon Sorsha as a mythical character. To me she is a real person. One of the things I liked about the script was that it was so real and earthy."
As George Lucas emphasizes, "'Willow' is about people and ideas. The underlying issues, the psychological motives, are the same as in all my movies: Personal responsibility and friendship, the importance of living a compassionate life as opposed to a passionate or selfish life."
"It's a very emotional movie. It's exciting and funny at the same time, and it's loaded with feeling," concludes Lucas.
In addition to Willow, Madmartigan and Sorsha, the world of "Willow" is filled with unforgettable characters: The good and brave Airk and his rebel warriors; the terrifying Death Dogs; Willow's gentle wife Kiaya and their children Mims and Ranon; the disagreeable Nelwyn Prefect, Burglekutt; the comical brownies Rool and Franjean, as well as hundreds of soldiers, trolls, Nelwyns...even a two-headed, fire-breathing monster.
"In order to make this kind of movie effective," Lucas explains, "you have to create a kind of immaculate reality that exists for the moment of the movie. Without that, fantasy won't work."
Lucas studied mythology and folklore from around the world before finally defining the story to his satisfaction. Writer Bob Dolman was brought in to write the script and pre-production on the film began more than a year before the cameras actually rolled.
The "Willow" production team was headquartered at the Elstree Studios in England, where an army of craftsmen and builders erected dozens of sets--castles, dungeons, courtyards, snow camps, towers and moats, all under the direction of production designer Allan Cameron. Prosthetic make-up designer Nick Dudman was also based at Elstree, where he and his talented crew created the revolutionary make-up for the actors, as well as designing and constructing the dozens of trolls, beasts, monsters and other creature elements of the film. Both of their departments started work on the film a full seven months before its April 1987 start date.
The film is set in a nebulous time," says Cameron. "So many things had to be designed from scratch. All the furniture and furnishings in the little igloo-shaped houses of the Nelwyn village had to be designed and built, scaled down to suit the occupants. Basically, the Nelwyns live near woods and we wanted to give the feeling that everything was constructed from roots and trees."
"The most interesting thing from a designer point of view was to try to make the different environments as varied as possible. And because of the different sizes of the actors in 'Willow,' we had to keep a sense of scale to everything. We go from brownies, who are nine-inch-tall characters, to Willow, who is 3'4", to Madmartigan, who is over six feet tall, to General Kael, a giant. Also, we have trolls and 30-foot monsters. We had to knit them all together, visually."
Working with construction manager Micky Murchan and his team, Cameron built General Kael's snow camp on location in New Zealand; the Nelwyn village at Brocket Hall, an historic 1,000 acre estate originally built in 1239 and located just 22 miles from central London; and, on the backlot of Elstree Studios, a 3-level set for a Tavern, many of the other exterior and interior sets needed for the film and facades for two castles.
To help create the wondrous inhabitants of Willow's world, Lucas turned to Nick Dudman, whose previous work on "The Empire Strikes Back," "Return of the Jedi" and many other films made him an obvious choice to oversee the monumental effort needed to create the various prosthetic devices and make-up for the Death Dogs, trolls and other characters, including Queen Bavmorda's transformation as her evil powers grow.
"I had my own team of animatronic mechanics, sculptors, mold-makers, painters, hair-knotters and body-suit fabricators," recalls Dudman, who took life-casts of the key actors so that the prosthetic pieces, mostly made of foam rubber, would fit perfectly on each performer. Once in place, he says, it is impossible to tell where the foam rubber leaves off and real skin begins.
Costume designer Barbara Lane had to find some 600 uniforms, complete with armor, to clothe the various soldiers in "Willow," as well as costumes for the Nelwyns. With the assistance of costume supervisor Rosemary Burrows, she searched the costume houses of England, Spain and Italy to find what was needed.
In addition to the costumes, the actors needed helmets, chain mail, leg armor and breast plates, all of which Lane and Burrows eventually found. In the end, they wound up with over 6 tons of armor.
To gather the more than 200 little people needed to play the Nelwyn villagers in "Willow," casting director Jeremy Zimmerman first recruited those living in the United Kingdom, then extended his search to Germany, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Italy and Ireland. None of the little people cast from these countries had ever been to London, the majority were not actors at all, and many of them did not even speak English.
The Nelwyn village scenes called for 225 little people, but more than double that number of extras, plus 200 horses, was needed for another scene, an army on the march, filmed thousands of miles away in Queenstown, New Zealand.
The "Willow" company spent 32 days in the Queenstown area and filming in the mountainous region was considered both an asset and a liability by the filmmakers. On the one hand, there is the spectacular scenery of mountain lakes and rugged snow-capped peaks. The drawback is that some of the areas chosen were nearly inaccessible, and helicopters had to be used to ferry cast and crew to the mountain-top sets.
"The footage we obtained in sub-zero weather is breathtaking," says Lucas, "and far outweighs the difficulty in achieving it. It became a daily challenge, but the results speak for themselves."
A bit closer to home were the scenes shot in Snowdonia, North Wales, an area of mountains and lakes, hill farms and rivers, castles, woolen mills and wild mountain passes where armies clashed in the Middle Ages. It was here that Howard filmed one of the most dramatic action scenes of Willow, Madmartigan and the brave men of Airk's army storming the evil Nockmaar castle.
More than 400 extras and 150 horses were used in the scene, as were dozens of stuntmen, specially trained horses and, surprisingly, some 200 pigs, a key element in the sequence. Behind the cameras stood an army of a different sort--the make-up, wardrobe, special-effects and technical experts needed to support the effort, all under the direction of Ron Howard.
"'Willow' is a big movie, with a lot of very complicated scenes," says Howard, "but the most involved was that one. It's a swordfighting battle with four to five hundred soldiers and takes place on the castle grounds while another battle, between two sorceresses, takes place in the tower above. All of this happens in the midst of a rain storm."
"What we're hoping for, throughout the film, is for the audience to feel transported into a time when incredible things happened and were taken absolutely for granted by everyone."
Concludes Howard, "This movie's kind of funny and it's a fantasy film and it's an adventure. And sometimes it's a little bit bigger than life. 'Willow' is about very unlikely heroes and their efforts--both successful and unsuccessful--learning to trust themselves, following their hearts and doing what they believe is right."
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Inc. presents "Willow," a Lucasfilm Ltd. production of a Film by Ron Howard, in association with Imagine Entertainment. Starring Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, Warwick Davis, Billy Barty and Jean Marsh, the film is produced by Nigel Wooll and directed by Ron Howard from a screenplay by Bob Dolman. Executive producer George Lucas wrote the original story.