Size Matters Not: The Extraordinary Life and Career of Warwick Davis

by Davis, Warwick

  While my filmmaking career hadn’t exactly entered hyperspace, my acting career was moving along nicely. Mum was still my agent; she took the calls and did the paperwork. And not long after I’d finished filming Willow, the BBC called her to offer me the role of Reepicheep the talking mouse in their adaptations of Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, from C. S. Lewis’s wonderful Chronicles of Narnia. These BBC children’s dramas were a real institution and a major televisual event broadcast on Sunday evenings.

  It was amazing to work on a BBC drama; most of the series was shot on location on beaches in Wales and Milford Haven (I would return to the exact same beach many years later for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) and on board a full-scale replica of the Dawn Treader. The deck and everything above looked completely authentic, while a production studio was belowdecks.

  The storm scenes were filmed at London’s Ealing Studios where the special-effects team had built a mock-up of the Dawn Treader’s upper deck. This had been mounted on a hydraulic system, which would simulate the boat at sea in a violent storm.

  I was in a fairly bulky foam mouse bodysuit, complete with screw-on tail. I was also wearing a glued-on foam-latex mouse nose, complete with whiskers made from stripped feathers.

  When the “storm” started, I wobbled and rolled my way back and forth across the boat. After what seemed to me to be an eternity the director finally yelled “Cut!”

  Relieved the ordeal was over, I tried to return to my starting position. I couldn’t move. The problem was that my foam suit had now absorbed so much water that it had turned into an extremely heavy water suit. It sagged dramatically, giving me a rather unfortunate knee-level potbelly. My once perky foam nose drooped impotently.

  After a quick discussion, it was decided that I needed to be “wrung out” before the next take. To save time, the makeup girl placed her hands around the nose and twisted in opposite directions. This was followed by a sudden undignified nasal downpour. Fortunately, they let me out of my bodysuit before they wrung that dry.

  I was delighted to follow Dawn Treader with a performance as Glimfeather the Owl in The Silver Chair, the next book in the series. For Glimfeather, I decided to do some preparation and went to an owl sanctuary to study their behavior. However, apart from learning that the collective noun for owls is a parliament, it was of limited benefit. I couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried, turn my head all the way round, tuck my head under my arm, or produce a shower of tiny pellets every twenty minutes or so.

  Luckily, my voice was a few octaves higher in those days, so I was able to do a pretty good “twit-twoo” and spoke every sentence with an “oo” on the end or in the middle, so lines became “Pleased to meet yooooooou,” and “She’s oooover there.” I’d sometimes carry it on after a loooong day, withoooout thinking.

  A real highlight of this production was meeting and acting with Tom Baker during The Silver Chair; he was still hugely famous then for playing the best Doctor Doctor Who had ever seen.a

  Tom’s wonderful voice – later put to good use as the narrator for Little Britain – was a delight to hear and I tried to get him to talk as much as possible. I found him to be a wonderfully honest person with a very peculiar dark side. He had the kind of stare that snakes use to hypnotize small furry animals before they swallow them whole.

  He loved talking about death, ghouls, and spooky places. He once said, “All my life I have felt myself to be on the edge of things. All my life I have suffered from bad dreams. All my life I have had difficulty in knowing whether I am awake or in a nightmare.”

  In fact we’ve both shared the same nightmare, having filmed in the same freezing Welsh quarry, me in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Tom in Doctor Who. The TARDIS materializes in the same quarry in almost every episode of Doctor Who – that quarry must be the center of the universe.

  Tom and I also shared almost precisely the same view about acting; he never took the job for granted and considered himself extremely fortunate to have had as much success as he did. He added that Doctor Who was the best job he’d ever had. “All I had to do was speak complete gobbledygook with utter conviction.” Nobody’s done it better.

  I was delighted to bump into him at a sci-fi convention in 1990. “Where’s your scarf?” I joked, referring to the fact that he wasn’t wearing his trademark nine-foot scarf. He smiled suddenly, and I felt like a small furry animal in the gaze of a king cobra – which, as a former Ewok, was only natural, I suppose.

  After I’d finished filming Dawn Treader and while Willow was still in cinemas, Robert, my accident-prone Willow stuntman double, was appearing in Snow White at the Cambridge Arts Theatre with the late,b great singer and comedienne Marti Caine as the Evil Queen, and I popped along to see the show. I hadn’t seen a pantod since I was a child and wasn’t expecting much, so it was with some surprise that I discovered it had a deliciously infectious atmosphere and I found myself shouting, “He’s behind you!” along with everyone else. It looked chaotic but it seemed as though the actors were having enormous fun and the energy coming from the crowd was like nothing I’d ever experienced.

  I admired the abilities of one performer in particular, the Queen’s Cat – called Catsmeat – who at one stage leapt into the audience and nimbly ran along the backs of the chairs, over kids’ screaming heads. Quite an amazing feat. He turned out to be an exceptional choreographer, Paul Harris, whom I’d work with very closely on another famous project, far in the future.

  After the performance, I saw a man with a rather stressed and frazzled appearance marching toward me. He came straight to the point: “I’m directing this travesty,” he opined. “Our leading dwarf is a raging alcoholic, I’ve just fired him. Do you want the role?”

  This was a bit sudden. I hesitated.

  “I’ve got to let him go. He’s been caught stinking of booze in front of the children once too often. Luckily, he’s playing Sleepy so we’ve got away with it so far.”

  “I don’t know,” I began.

  “We keep an eighth dwarf spare so he can take over but we’d love to have you as Sleepy if possible, otherwise we don’t have an eighth man.”

  I then spotted Samantha on stage, who’d been a Newlyn villager in Willow and whom I’d admired from afar on the set of Labyrinth. I recalled the night we’d finally met properly during the Willow dinner at the Waldorf and how well we’d got on.

  “Okay, why not?” I said.

  “Great, you can start tomorrow.”

  “Hang on . . .”

  Taking to the stage in a nightshirt was a very strange experience at first, but I loved every minute. It was odd because at the time my name was everywhere on cinema billboards, newspapers, and magazines, as Willow was still showing. But as Sleepy in Snow White I wasn’t given any billing whatsoever and I don’t think anybody in the audience realized who I was.

  Almost every actor will tell you that there’s nothing quite like performing in front of a live audience. There’s no second take so you have to get it right the first time. If you don’t, the audience lets you know straight away. Fortunately, panto is the home of the live cock-up, although the worst thing that happened during this version of Snow White was a blackout. In another, more recent production, Grumpy (played by my father-in-law) and Dopey got stuck in a lift on the way to the stage, which brought proceedings to a sudden halt for a few minutes before they were successfully extracted by a caretaker with a crowbar.

  Although the happy squeals of delight from the kids in the audience gave me a pretty big ego boost, I soon found out that panto took great discipline and stamina. We did three shows every Saturday and two every other day of the week, except for Mondays, with 10 a.m. matinees for the littlest children – who were also our toughest audience. For everyone, actors and audience alike, panto is great fun and all involved have a brilliant time.

  Since then I’ve acted in Snow White dozens of times – as the tabloids say, every year at Christmas, there’s always a – wait for it�
� “Dwarf Shortage,” so demand is very high.

  Once, a few years later in Dartford, there was a bomb scare just as we were reaching the grand finale and everyone had to evacuate the building. Once we were outside a policeman told us it could take a while, so the seven dwarfs went down to a local boozer with the wicked queen (who happened to be male and smoked a pipe) for seven halves and a pint of Guinness. We took great delight, sitting there in the smoky, quite grim pub, watching locals enter and not know where to look or what to say as we shouted: “It’s your round!”

  “Oh no it isn’t!”

  “Oh yes it is!” and so on.

  During that very first special Snow White in Cambridge, after exchanging a handful of waves and a smattering of nice words, Sam and I slowly started to get to know each other; there are always lots of Christmas parties for panto folk. I presented Sam with a Christmas card with a long message in it, telling her how much I enjoyed her company and so on. It was very reserved and polite, although I think it was clear that romance was on my mind.

  I opened Sam’s card to me. It read “from Sam.”

  I sighed. “Patience, Warwick,” I thought, “just hang in there.”

  After the last show of the day on New Year’s Eve, everyone was busy zooming out to join the festivities in town. New Year’s Day was a rare day off so most people wanted to make the most of it. I wasn’t in any mad hurry and the theater was almost deserted by the time I was about to leave. The exit was on the far side of the stage and the dressing rooms were on the other side, so you had to cross the stage to leave the building. I was halfway across the stage when I saw Sam coming the other way. The stage was dimly lit, there was no one about, and the curtain was down.

  Something inside told me it was now or never. I was nervous, I was shorter than Sam, and I wondered how this would go.

  I needn’t have worried. It went perfectly.

  As we kissed, alone on that stage in what was a flawless moment, I half-expected the curtains to open and an audience to leap to a standing ovation. This was, after all, my finest performance.

  It was around this time that I was finally able to drive my first car – a brand new Mini. I actually bought it a while before I’d passed my driving testd and had it customized. It was black and I had the interior redone in black leather, with wood strips along the doors and dashboard, a made-to-measure driver’s seat and, of course, raised pedals. The only catch came when applying for insurance, as I had to mention the modifications. This meant that they needed to know my height and weight. I was at home when someone from the insurance company phoned to check my details.

  “There seems to be a mistake with your form,” he said, “your height is down as three-foot-six; we need to know your height, not your child’s.”

  “But I am three-foot-six,” I said.

  This was followed by a short silence.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure. I’m very aware, more than most people, of my exact height.”

  I explained why I was smaller than average but this didn’t seem to help matters.

  “But there aren’t any numbers low enough on our system for me to input your height.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that but it’s not my problem, is it?”

  “But I can’t accept it, it doesn’t fit on our system.”

  “Can’t you just put a note on the system?”

  And on and on the conversation went. I was simply a blip in the system. However, once I got to speak to someone senior enough, I eventually got my insurance. It’s the same with passports, life insurance, visas – anything that requires height and weight, including – believe it or not – the taxman (of whom, more later).

  Being able to drive offered me a newfound freedom. I didn’t much care for traveling by bus – my friends always wanted to sit upstairs, which inevitably involved death-defying ascents and descents of the insanely steep staircases they have on buses. They posed an extraspecial challenge as I was too short to reach the support rail. I’d never complain; I just tried to get myself up those damn stairs. I find that most problems to do with being short can be overcome with a little determination. Then, it seemed to me at least, no one expected anything from the world – now it’s as if people who are different automatically feel as if the world should be altered to suit them. But while I was (not) growing up, I had to make do with the world as it was and find the best way around the obstacles it put in my path.

  Needless to say, as soon as I got my driving license, I drove everywhere I could.e I drove Sam to and from college and gave her lifts to wherever else she wanted to go. We were soul mates. Being with Sam was the best and easiest thing in the world.

  When she wasn’t acting, Sam was studying hairdressing and beauty therapy. She told me that her college were having an end-of-year makeup competition in which students would create crazy designs to show off their skills.

  Ever one to take a challenge to the limit, I hatched a dastardly prizewinning plan. I got my hands on some fake fur and two chamois leathers and Sam did the rest. When it was Sam’s turn to show off her creation, I leapt onto the catwalk screaming and beating my chest with one hand, waving my banana in the other, doing my finest Cheetah impersonation. I circled the stunned judges, thumping my hands on the floor, before throwing my banana in the air and galloping out – with first prize. Tarzan would have been so proud.

  By now, as any woman whose boyfriend has dressed up as a monkey for them will tell you, I was madly in love. I bent down on one knee and proposed (after removing the monkey getup). Sam said yes.

  Me in monkey makeup as designed and painted by Sam, who’s holding the first prize certificate. I knew we’d win if I waved my banana at the judges.

  In my adapted Mini – yes it really is that simple. Bolt on a raised seat and a set of adapter pedals and you’re away – although you should always make sure your nuts are tight.

  I’m first on the left: Sam is second from the right. That stage was the setting for a very romantic scene between us.

  Mr. Cool himself.

  a Back off, Peter Davison fans.

  b She wasn’t late then, of course – that would have been quite something. It is well known in panto lore that all the Snow Whites eventually become Evil Queens. That must be a rough day, when you get the call, “We’d love you for panto, except this year we want you to play . . . er . . . the Evil Queen.”

  c “Panto” or pantomime is an extremely popular English Christmas tradition of theatrical entertainment that takes place across towns and cities in the U.K., mainly for children, that involves music, topical jokes, and slapstick comedy. They’re nearly always based on a well-known fairy tale or nursery story. Men dress as women and women as men, and lots of celebrities take part – some famous Americans who have recently done panto include David Hasselhoff (who played Captain Hook in Peter Pan), Henry Winkler (also Captain Hook), and Vanilla Ice “Ice Baby” (er, also Captain Hook). Apparently Americans are very good at playing mad pirates with a crocodile phobia.

  d Before I got my license, Daniel and I used to sit in the Mini in the garage, listening to music on the car stereo. We’d also put on our Ray-Bans, switch on the hazard lights, and pretend we were the Blues Brothers.

  e The Mini finally had enough after 100,000 miles, after which it fell apart faster than a clown car.

  Chapter Eleven

  Willow’s Shotgun Wedding

  Our dress requirements were a tad unusual but the tailor came up trumps.

  With our bridesmaids and page boy, Luke.

  The odd couple. Me and my beanpole best man and idiot, Daniel.

  Us, mums, dads, and grandparents.

  In the year following our engagement, Sam and I decided to buy a house and found a semidetached in Peterborough where Sam was still at college. Surrey, where my parents lived, was still ridiculously expensive as far as I was concerned, while Peterborough was fairly central, and not too distant from various studios and popular filming locations.
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  Then Sam uttered the two little words that send the pulses of men racing into panic mode: “I’m pregnant.”

  It was a bit of a shock-horror moment. We were both so young, having just turned twenty, and although we planned to get married the following year we hadn’t intended to start a family quite so soon. The knowledge that a child was on the way meant that everything was suddenly turned on its head – including our outlook on life. We decided to continue with our wedding plans regardless, as the baby was due after our chosen date.

  Sam had a beautiful pregnancy; she stayed active and retained the title of Chief Wedding Organizer. She had five bridesmaids and one page boy. What we’d originally planned as a small affair soon spiraled into a huge event for 120 people. Obviously, the wedding dress was a bit of a challenge for the dressmaker and I had to arrange for some extreme retailoring of a morning suit. But although it was a busy time we were very happy and excited; life couldn’t have been better.