Size Matters Not: The Extraordinary Life and Career of Warwick Davis (11 page)

During filming it happened to be George Lucas’s daughter’s birthday. Amanda was four years old and she loved the Ewoks, none more so than Wicket. She was one of the reasons the Ewok movies were made. George saw that she and her friends couldn’t get enough of the little furballs.

George appeared on the set one day and asked me to come to Amanda’s party in costume at his house and be Wicket for the day. “Sure!” I said, “that’d be cool!”

I arrived at George’s fabulously enormous house just as all the kids were playing in the pool. They screamed when they saw me. “Let’s see if Wicket wants to go swimming!” one girl with pink cheeks and pigtails said.

I was under strict instructions not to ruin things by talking (at this stage Ewoks didn’t speak English, neither did they sound like fourteen-year-old boys), so I backed away quickly, even though I was sorely tempted to risk drowning. It was a hundred degrees and I was melting inside that costume.

As soon as the chance presented itself, I dashed back inside for a brief “heads off” moment before returning again in my highly flammable costume carrying the cake complete with four burning candles. Everyone sang “Happy Birthday” and I cut a slice for the birthday girl. She then generously decided to share her cake with me. Of course, my costume wouldn’t allow me to bite and eat but that didn’t prevent the little girl from shoving the cake straight through the costume’s mouth hole. Suddenly all of the little angels wanted to feed the Ewok and so they rammed cake into my mouth until my Ewok head was full and I started to suffocate. Fortunately the parents rescued me – “Wicket’s feeling a bit tired and full now, children, time for his nap” – and carried me away as I started to cough urgently. When they took the head off about a pound of cake slopped onto George’s lounge carpet.

The Battle for Endor
quickly followed the success of
Caravan of Courage.
The plot involved a grumpy old spaceman and Wicket becoming friends. I was thrilled to bits to be Wicket once more; it was becoming a yearly treat and this time I was allowed to bring Daniel.

Daniel and I had an amazing time. To us, back in 1985, America really was the greatest country in the world by far. It was still a world of dreams and its image – among young people – had yet to be tarnished. It was the land that had everything your heart could possibly desire, from frozen yogurt to Disneyland, with a Dunkin’ Donuts and a McDonald’s on every street (most English towns didn’t have McDonald’s back then). But most of all it was the land of movies and back then you could see new films ages, sometimes years before they came out in the UK, conferring upon us substantial bragging rights for months after we returned home.

“Oh, we saw that when we were in America, didn’t we, Warwick?”

And then I’d torture them by saying, “Yeah, it was brilliant, you have to see it.”

While we were in the States, Mum got another call from Elstree, this time from Jim Henson Productions.

“Do you think Warwick would like to be a goblin?” they asked. “We’re making a movie called
Labyrinth
with David Bowie and we need experienced little people.”

Chapter Six

Starman in My Caravan

My father-in law, Peter Burroughs, with David Bowie on the set of
Labyrinth
. I was probably in my trailer when this was taken.

 

Sam with the Goblin King.

 

Battle for Endor
and
Labyrinth
were being made at the same time but with a little clever synchronization of schedules, made easier by the fact that George Lucas was executive producer on each of the movies, I was all set to appear in both. My role in
Labyrinth
was more in the background and, thanks to animatronics, I was able to play two goblins called Bumpot and WW2. The film starred David Bowie, directed by Jim Henson, puppeteered by Frank Oz, and written by Terry Jones. You couldn’t get any better than that. My life cast was made at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in leafy Downshire Hill (which ran off Willow Road!) in Hampstead, North London.

Jim’s studio wasn’t as big as I’d imagined and was both warehouse and workshop. It was packed floor to ceiling with Muppets, all sorts of weird creature creations, and casts of famous people’s bits and pieces. Powerful odors of glue, clay, and fiberglass fought for supremacy. It may have been me but the glue seemed to be winning – the puppet makers all walked around in a happy, dreamy daze.

Jim Henson used to live right opposite the studio. So afterward, covered in Vaseline and goodness knows what else, I was sent to have a shower in his house. He wasn’t there at the time, so I had the place to myself. Like the studio, it was packed full of Muppets. Kermit sat on a window ledge in the bathroom while Beaker and Gonzo the Great propped each other up on a chair in the hall and a collection of Miss Piggy’s wigs was piled on a hallway shelf.

It was brilliant but kind of freaky. I half-expected the characters to spring into life and start singing the theme song to
The Muppet Show
. I even protected my modesty by turning Kermit’s head away from me while I was in the shower.

The life cast done,
^a
it was time to begin filming.
Labyrinth
was shot at Elstree, on one of the stages used in
Jedi
. Now it’s all gone and a Tesco stands in its place (some would say that’s another empire to be fearful of). The Ewok Village set once stood right where the fish counter is today.

Although I wasn’t in any scenes with David Bowie and his spectacular trousers,
^b
I did manage to get a brief audience with the Goblin King and David was completely delightful. He seemed to be really enjoying making the film and was always in good spirits.

I was in the general goblin melee along with many other little people. The cast of
Labyrinth
contained many former Ewoks, including my good friend Peter Burroughs and his daughter Sam. Peter was also a stunt goblin. In one scene he had to swing over a castle wall. He was counted in on three, coordinated by the stunt director. Unfortunately, his assistant had steered a gaggle of goblins directly into his arc and despite desperate if confusing screams of “Duck!” and “Heads up!” Peter scattered them all like bowling pins.

I was into radio-controlled cars in those days and would amuse myself between scenes by racing my latest snazzy model around Elstree. I thought I was very cool and believed my wizardry with the remote control was something quite magnificent to behold. I even had dreams of turning pro and getting sponsorship. (When Sam saw me doing this for the first time, she sighed, “What a spoiled little brat.”)

A lot of the film involved my fellow goblins and me being chased by radio-controlled rocks of all sizes. They ranged from about five feet across to the size of a pebble. A guy with the controller would get them to roll using a powerful motor and steered them using an internal gimbal. They were a little unreliable, though, and their inertia would sometimes get the better of them so I’d still be running for my life long after Henson yelled “Cut!”

While many were mechanized, there were also plenty of rubber boulders that were simply rolled downhill toward us. Sometimes, in an effort to make the rocks look as if they were chasing us, we were fastened to them with thin cables – but we often became entangled and would land flat on our faces before the giant stone rolled over us.

Jim had problems when the rocks were meant to chase me uphill and into my house. After some thought and experimenting with my video camera, I came up with the bright idea of running backward with the rocks rolling downhill after me. “Reverse the film and voila!” I said.

It worked and I was convinced I was a cinematic genius in the making.

There were quite a few accidents during the filming of
Labyrinth
. My animatronic head was made of fiberglass and metal and I had a moving beak attached to my chin. In one scene I had to run across an alleyway while being chased by goblins that were riding weird ostrich Muppet costumes, each operated by an actor inside. The actor’s torso was made up to look like the goblin rider, while the actor’s legs, hidden in the costume, maneuvered as the ostrich’s legs.

There were six of these riding goblins that charged through all at once. I couldn’t see them coming and take after take I ended up flat on my back as they took me straight out. It was like being inside a bell being repeatedly struck with a metal bar – and it always seemed to be the biggest bloke who managed to hit me.

Kenny Baker had it even worse. He was standing next to the castle wall when a cannonball was fired at it. The cannonball was of course magical and goblin-like – it had arms and legs. It was supposed to explode when it hit the building and it certainly did that. A huge cascade of sparks fell onto an unwitting, highly flammable Kenny, who promptly erupted into flames. For some seconds he just stood there, in that blissfully unaware state people go into when their hair is on fire, after which – when most of their hair has burned away – they innocently ask, “What’s that smell? It smells just like . . .”

Just as the flames of recognition flickered across Kenny’s face, a stagehand came sprinting from the side and slapped him to the floor with an almighty forehand to his enflamed head. The flames were extinguished in seconds but poor Kenny was left with a severe case of sudden-onset baldness and temporary double vision.

The Davis family home was far, far away from Elstree and the hotel we were offered as accommodation had less charm than a real-life Farty Owls (a.k.a. Fawlty Towers). For some reason, as soon as you stepped into your room, the temperature dropped to something close to freezing.

Then Dad had an epiphany.

“Well, we’ve just bought a bigger and better caravan, why don’t we stay in that?”

It was true – in a rare fit of extravagance Dad had bought a caravan with double-glazing, cold running water, and so much space it had an echo. He parked it just twenty feet from the stage door that led to the Goblin City. Suddenly I had a bigger and better dressing room than David Bowie – and it was closer to the stage. All I had to do was wake up and wander in to work.

Unfortunately, Dad made my life more difficult by staying with me for the entire five weeks of filming and inviting everyone to “his place” for a drink. I struggled to sleep as the little actors Jack Purvis
^c
and Kenny Baker traded showbiz stories with Dad.

With filming completed a wrap party was organized. Oddly enough, I met one of my childhood heroes – Miss Popov from
Rentaghost
– at the party, which was held on the Goblin City set. By then she was playing Audrey in
Coronation Street
but she still very kindly did Miss Popov’s accent and touched her nose for me (this was how one disappeared in
Rentaghost
).

Kenny and Jack had formed a group called the Mini-Tones and they performed a cabaret atop the castle wall. It was a crazy place to have a party. This was the mid-1980s and everybody was dressed in white, the set was filthy, and it wasn’t long before everyone looked as if they’d just been down a coal mine.

Finally, after eight weeks spent running around the huge stage being chased by radio-controlled rocks and admiring (from afar) Peter’s gorgeous daughter, the film was done and it was back to school.

^a
Henson kept my life cast in his house as an ornament. It’s still out there somewhere. Come to think of it, there are bits of me everywhere.

^b
They left
nothing
to the imagination.

^c
Jack Purvis was one of the few cast members who’d been in all three
Star Wars
films – as a Jawa, an Ewok, a Dustbin Droid, and Chief Ugnaught. Jack also played a key role as Wally in Terry Gilliam’s cult movie
Time Bandits
. There were plans for a sequel but Terry Gilliam later indefinitely shelved it after both Jack and David Rappaport, who played the other key role, suffered terrible tragedies. Jack was paralyzed after his car rolled backward and crushed him (he died six years later), while David, struggling with depression, killed himself in 1990.