In fact, one of my favorite moments of my acting career came in that movie. It’s the scene in which the Leprechaun is zapped by some kind of laser, which causes him to expand to gigantic proportions – he then does a lot of slow-motion stomping around a space station.
To pull it off the special-effects guys built a scaled-down replica set with lots of crates made of tiny plastic boxes. I think I was enjoying myself a little too much – even bashing my head on the ceiling was a new treat. “Warwick, that was great,” Brian said, “but we’re going to have to do that again, this time try not to make the sound effects.”
I realized then that I’d been producing the sound effects myself. I thought they were in my head but every time I’d stomped my foot on the ground I’d growled, “Boom!” and every time I’d smashed a crate I’d yelled, “Smash!”
The one thing I couldn’t understand about this film was that after the Leprechaun becomes big, he looks down the front of his trousers and admires his enlarged manhood. This never made sense to me, as proportionately speaking, it would still look the same size to him. Still, it was never mine to reason why, this was a Leprechaun film; nothing was supposed to make sense.
I was delighted to be acting alongside Debbe Dunning, the Tool Time Girl from Tim Allen’s hugely popular TV show Home Improvement. Her character, Delores Costello, was named after a silent-movie star – the grandmother of Drew Barrymore.
But I was most honored to be working alongside a true legend, Guy Siner, a.k.a. Lieutenant Hubert Gruber from the classic British sitcom ’Allo, ’Allo! He played Dr. Mittenhand, who was half man and half machine, a bit like Davros from Doctor Who. Poor Guy was forced to suffer so much indignity during that film. He staggered around night and day with no clothes on from the waist up and seemed to be glued to more prosthetics than any other character in acting history. Most of the film’s budget went on Guy’s makeup and costume; I imagine the local glue factory had to hire more staff and work through the night.
In the film the Leprechaun injects Dr. Mittenhand in the head with a mixture of crushed-up spider and scorpion juice he’s made in a blender. This turns poor old Mittenhand into a . . . a . . . well, I suppose you’d call it a scorpion-spiderman.
I saw Guy at a convention several years later (he’s since been in both Doctor Who and Star Trek) and we had a fun chat about the good old days, in particular the agony he went through being an arachnid. The spider costume was so massive and heavy that he couldn’t do anything once he was glued in – he couldn’t even go to the toilet so he wouldn’t drink anything and would end the day dizzy with dehydration. Despite this (or perhaps because of it) he gave a truly crazy, brilliant performance screaming his desire for flies once he was transformed. He sounded like a cross between Gruber’s evil twin brother and Dr. Strangelove. I remember Guy saying, “I am like the Wizard of Oz, am I not? Running things from behind a curtain. Only this wizard is not a fake!”
Unfortunately it didn’t end well for Dr. Mittenhand and me. At the end of the film I drift off into space and explode while Mittenhand is frozen by a blast of liquid hydrogen and shatters.
Why? How? Doesn’t matter. There were a lot of shots of a former Miss Teen USA runner-up carrying a gun and running around in her underwear to take viewers’ minds off any plot holes. Besides that there were some gratuitous breast shots, six corpses, a light-saber duel, a dash of cross-dressing, public urination, space discos, kung fu fighting, flame throwing, face flattening, bug blending, electrocution, and a shrink ray (and reverse shrink ray). All good, clean, family fun.
Ron Howard called me again during the making of Leprechaun 4 and asked me what I’d been up to. Recalling that he’d told me not to make any more after the first one, I reluctantly confessed: “Well, I’ve made another three Leprechaun films since.”
“Well,” he said, “my daughter and her boyfriend loved that first Leprechaun film, so I guess anything they like is fine by me too. Besides, my brother’s in one of them.”
Sure enough, Ron’s infamously ugly brother, Clint Howard, was there in Leprechaun 2 as “The Tourist.” Clint had appeared in hundreds of films, including nearly all of Ron’s; some say that Clint’s face served as the model for the dragon in Willow.
As production finally wound up, Sam and I flew home. We had plenty to think about on the flight back.
Sam was pregnant again.
a I didn’t fall over.
b He was fine, although he smelled of burned hair and ozone for a few days.
c Note to McVitie’s: I prefer plain chocolate.
Chapter Fourteen
Annabelle
Sam and I with baby Annabelle.
Nice shades!
Annabelle has inherited my obsession for McVitie’s biscuits.
Professor Charles Rodeck was calm, confident, and reassuring. “Fetal medicine has come a long way over the past couple of years,” he said with a smile, “and this little unit is the best in the world.”
He was right. The three noticeboards full of pictures of happy parents and babies on his office walls were testament to that.
Professor Rodeck was a pioneer in fetal medicine based at University College Hospital in central London. He had devised a test, which was not without an element of risk, but which we decided in our case was clearly worth doing. It would tell us if the baby was likely to survive by pinpointing some of the genes it had inherited. Although any test that involves sticking a large hypodermic syringe into a womb is risky, the odds of losing our baby to this procedure were slim – less than two hundred to one. Nevertheless, I held my breath as I watched the Prof carefully pass the needle into Sam’s womb. It’s a very delicate procedure. Both Sam and the baby had to keep very still.
We then had to spend a nerve-racking two weeks waiting for the result. We still didn’t know which gene produced my condition, but when the results came through Professor Rodeck was able to tell us that Sam’s gene, the gene that caused achondroplasia, wasn’t present.
That meant our baby was either going to be a tall child or an SED child (like me). The most important factor was the brilliant news that she didn’t have the lethal double-dominant combination of both of our genes. She would survive the birth. Yes! Full of optimism, I got on with redecorating the nursery and Sam and I shopped for all things baby-related.
Sam went into Peterborough Hospital on March 28, 1997. We knew most of the doctors and nurses pretty well by now and it was great to see so many friendly faces; they really took care of us from day one.
Emotions were running pretty high. Everyone was determined that this time we would leave the hospital with our child – the doctors, Mr. Hackman included, put themselves under tremendous pressure. “We’re going to win this time,” he told us with a confident smile.
Sam was knocked out for the Caesarean birth. Mr. Hackman wouldn’t let me in his operating room, which was fine by me; I doubt I would have stayed conscious had I been present. Despite having starred in half-a-dozen gore fests, I have a low tolerance for live surgery.
When Mr. Hackman yelled, “It’s a girl!” my first reaction was “What?” I couldn’t believe it. For some reason I’d convinced myself and everyone else that we were having a boy. I’d even chosen a name: Rodney.
Sam and I were both big Only Fools and Horses fans. I also thought it was very distinctive (nobody’s called Rodney these days) and that Rodney Davis would make another excellent actor’s name. I hadn’t even thought about choosing a girl’s name, but inspiration hit on almost the first page of a baby names book, which told us that Annabelle meant “fortunate and beautiful.”
Annabelle – who was little – was born fighting for her life and was put on a ventilator. Despite just having had major surgery, Sam joined me downstairs so we could see our daughter together. We hardly dared to say anything. Neither of us could face having to grieve again.
While Annabelle battled away, Sam and I played detective with the pediatrician, Dr. Tuck, and various other doctors who were trying
to figure out what was wrong. This was something entirely new to them; so many decisions had to be made in response to sudden changes in Annabelle’s condition.
To other parents in the same situation I’d recommend being proactive. Question the doctors. Trust them by all means, but just make sure you know what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and what the consequences might be. We’d learned so much already from our previous experiences and so understood a bit of the lingo by now.
The hours grew into days and still Annabelle hung in there. Neither of us dared to voice our hopes.
One morning a nurse came in to fetch Sam. “You need to pop down and see Annabelle and Warwick,” she said. “Nothing’s wrong, but I think you should go down.”
I turned as Sam arrived at the intensive care unit. She could tell from my smile. It was the largest I’d ever pulled in my life. I showed more teeth than the smile I pulled when I knew I was going to be in a Star Wars movie, and broader than the grin I wore when I won the part for Willow. It was a smile of pure, utterly uncontained joy.
Sam walked toward me. “Look,” I said, “look at Annabelle.”
She was off the ventilator.
Sam gasped with joy and started to wobble; I caught her as she fell.
“Annabelle is here to stay!” I said.
It was the greatest day of our lives.
It took another seven weeks before Annabelle was healthy enough to leave the hospital. It was such a joy to finally bring one of our children home. To us Annabelle was even more precious because of what we’d been through with Lloyd and George. Every day we had to remind ourselves that this was real – that Annabelle was here to stay.
As ever, I didn’t have much time to reflect. We’d literally just settled in when I received another life-changing phone call.
It was George Lucas. “Warwick, you finally talked me into it; it’s time . . .”
Chapter Fifteen
The Little Menace
With Jake Lloyd (aka Anakin Skywalker) on the ferry back from Tunisia after filming the Tatooine scenes for The Phantom Menace.
Holding a fuel pipe while badgering George for a part in yet another scene.
Courtesy of Lucasfilm Ltd.
Me as Wald, Anakin’s best pal.
Courtesy of Lucasfilm Ltd.
The now infamous “Willow scene.”
Courtesy of Lucasfilm Ltd.
Rumors had been circulating for years about a new Star Wars film. I’d used every available chance to drop every kind of hint I could think of to George Lucas, old buddy, old pal, dear friend – usually by fax – to let him know that I would make myself available if and when filming commenced.
Whenever I spoke to George I’d always say something like: “For goodness’ sake, when are you going to make another Star Wars movie?”
And all he would say was: “Soon, Warwick. Soon.”
So yes, some people have since said that The Phantom Menace was my fault.
Not long after the phone call, a letter arrived postmarked Skywalker Ranch. George had given me the part of Wald, Anakin Skywalker’s best friend.
“Excellent!”
Anakin is the central character in Phantom Menace, the kid who goes on to become Darth Vader, so I reckoned that as his best friend I’d have a lot of screen time. It would also mean that we’d be very, very close at long, long last to paying back the tax man.
One of the downsides, of course, was that as my character was a youngster I wouldn’t get to play with a light saber or laser guns and the chances of killing any Stormtroopers would be remote. I didn’t mind, I was just delighted to be in the new Star Wars movie.
Wald was a little green alien with saucer eyes, antennae, and a froglike skin. As I shared none of those physical characteristics, this meant I would have to wear a rubber head. I sighed. I’d come a long way since Jedi but now here I was, about to go back into yet another rubber head. Oh well, I’d asked for it, I suppose.
But George was way ahead of me, of course. He called me and said he felt bad about giving me the role of a masked character and he’d found something else for me to do as a humanoid background character. So I showed up at Leavesden Studios extremely excited. George was there and told me I’d be filming a scene from the pod race with the second unit.
I headed over to makeup where the hair designer, who shall remain nameless, looked me up and down and said, “You need hair extensions.”
“Fair enough,” I thought, and took a seat where for several hours many hair extensions were glued onto my hair with a waxy, rubbery substance. When she’d finished I stared at the mirror. I looked like a tramp who’d spent a night sleeping in a hedge full of angry badgers.
“Oh yes,” I said, in the tone of a man who had made the mistake of telling a young high street hairdresser to do whatever they wanted, “I can see what you’ve done here, yes, it’s good. Excellent. Yes. Um.”
Once in costume, suitably attired for a day at the space races, I dashed off and found the stage, just in time to start shooting scenes from Anakin’s pod race.a
“What’s Willow doing here?” a production assistant asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re dressed as Willow, are they making a sequel? This is the stage for Star Wars Episode I,b you know.”
It was true. I hadn’t realized until then but I looked like an older, scruffier version of Willow – albeit a version who hadn’t washed his hair for a few years. Sure enough, by the time the film came to be edited the scene became known as the “Willow shot.”
Interestingly (for the gee–, sorry, fans), this link was expanded upon and, as an April Fool joke, StarWars.com ran a story saying that Willow had been absorbed into the Star Wars universe. It worked well because there are various similarities between the two films. They both have a lead character with great imagination and hidden potential (Luke and Willow) and a lovable rogue-turned-hero (Han Solo and Madmartigan). Also Skywalker is the English translation of the Sanskrit word “Daikini,” which is the name of the “human” species in Willow. But as far as I know there are no plans to merge the two . . . yet.
In the “Willow shot” we were supposed to be watching a pod race and making bets on the outcomes. A mass of enormous studio lights were used to replicate the blinding suns of Tatooine and aircraft propellers to simulate the backdraft of the pods as they raced by. The actors had to picture the pod race happening right in front of them and I also had to imagine I was seated next to Watto, a CGI character (he’s the greedy Toydarian secondhand goods seller who “owns” Anakin, his mother, and C-3PO).
Now, as we were in a sports stadium watching a pod race, it made sense that there were various alien beings selling snacks and drinks. As the cameras began to roll, a girl came into view with space-age-looking crisps (I think they were Walkers with a blob of food coloring on them) and a weird gloopy fruit juice. It was served in intergalactic Tupperware, the same sort of beakers and plates used by Luke when he’s having dinner with his family on Tatooine in Episode IV.
We were supposed to look full of anticipation, excited at the prospect of a great race, and then we had to leap up as the race began. As the crisps came past, I thought “Why not?” and grabbed a handful and then took some juice to wash them down.
“Cut! That was great, let’s go again, everyone!”
Because it was a special-effects shot, numerous takes of us performing exactly the same actions were required. So six large handfuls of crisps and a couple of pints of space juice later, I started feeling rather ill. I’d also managed to develop a very painful migraine, thanks to the extremely bright and hot studio lights. After the seventh take, I shut my eyes and leaned backward in my chair in an effort to ease my aching head and a growing feeling of nausea.
Someone was tapping on my foot. Where was I? Who on earth would be tapping my foot? I opened one eye. Oh, cock! It was George. This was my first day on the movie and I’d fallen asleep. Twenty years of pestering and this was how I showed my
gratitude.
I decided to play it cool and stayed just as I was, leaning back in my chair.
“Hiya, George, just resting my eyes from the bright lights.”
George’s eyes twinkled. I could tell he knew.
“I was snoring, wasn’t I?”
I wondered how I always managed to do this. I always tried to be on my best behavior around George but I always managed to embarrass myself. It had happened on the set of Willow. Daniel and I had been regaling the crew with a story about how a few days earlier I’d been stranded in one of the Portaloos in total darkness without any toilet paper and I’d had to yell out of the window for help. Daniel got very graphic and quite rude and despite my best efforts to get him to shut up he had continued, blissfully unaware that George was standing right behind him. Luckily (on both occasions) George didn’t seem to be offended.
Size Matters Not: The Extraordinary Life and Career of Warwick Davis Page 17