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

by Davis, Warwick

  Having said that, reading Potter while trying to imagine the film was wonderful, if a little daunting. How on earth were they going to get all this on screen? Still, this wasn’t my problem, I concluded. I just needed to understand my character.

  So who was Flitwick? Well, he was described as a gnomelike wizard with a dash of goblin and, from what I could tell from the books, he seemed to be a real trooper, someone who could be totally relied upon, someone who would give his life for his students and Hogwarts. He was kind, trusting, and not without a sense of humor. He did not feel the need to intimidate his students, like certain other Hogwarts teachers. Flitwick’s small stature belied his physical strength, power, and wisdom, contrary to the stereotype of little people.

  He was a great character, a testament to Rowling’s skill as an author, and the more I learned about Flitwick, the more I wanted to play him.

  As I read the books I was reminded more and more of my own mad professor performance as a child, the one I’d filmed with my sister (when I hit her with my geography textbook). That’s just how I imagined a young Professor Flitwick would have been.

  Finally, it grew so late that I could read no more. “Right, that’s it!” I said, and closed the book. “From this moment forth, I am Professor Flitwick.”

  The next morning I traveled to the audition, which took place at Leavesden Studios. It was full of people besides the director (Chris Columbus of Home Alone fame). There were the casting directors, producer David Heyman, and several assistants. Although I hadn’t worked with Chris before, I was pleased to discover that I knew the casting directors from Willow. It’s always good to see a friendly face at these things, especially as we’d got on quite well in the past.

  Everyone was taking this movie very seriously, it was a huge project and it was important, they said, to get everything just right.

  “Okay,” Chris said, standing up and handing me a script, “I’ll play Harry and the other characters. You ready?”

  My heart thumped. “Yep, whenever you are.”

  I was a bit worried, as some directors will read the characters in a deadpan voice. This makes it very hard to produce a lively performance in return and it’s only too easy to slip up and deliver your lines a little flatter than you would if you were performing with an actor.

  To my delight, Chris read with real gusto and I responded in kind. I was Flitwick: kind, dependable, strong but with a soft cheeky glint in my eye. Pretty soon we’d worked our way through the scripted scene and had started improvising. We wound up giggling like a pair of idiots. So was everybody else.

  I took this as a pretty good sign, although, as I said to Sam afterward, “I hope they were laughing with me rather than at me.”

  As anybody who has lived with an actor will probably tell you, we’re not that pleasant to be around while we’re waiting to hear if we’ve won a part. Poor Sam had to endure my anxiety as I waited and waited and waited. I went through the casting session with her over and over again, analyzing every moment, criticizing every aspect of my performance. Sam would try to convince me that I’d done well but that just made me doubt my performance all the more.

  I really, really wanted this part. I became very nervous about it and life ground to a halt for a couple of weeks. Normally, if you’ve won a part you tend to hear back pretty quickly. But if you haven’t scored the role you sometimes simply won’t get a call to break the bad news: silence speaks volumes.

  I’d endured my fair share of silences in my career; these were mainly the result of bad decisions on my part. These days I’m much better at making choices about a role before I go to auditions. This is a key part of being an actor, especially when you can actually afford to turn down roles that you know aren’t right for you. But there was a time when I went to every single audition, simply because I had to work, I needed the money, and there was really no choice.

  I’ve been to plenty of auditions where I’ve walked into a room and didn’t click with the director or the producer. I’ve also done plenty of cold reads, when you’re given something entirely new to read in character there and then.

  Whenever I failed auditions, as unpleasant as that was, I always took something positive from the experience and I never let them knock my confidence. I’m a great believer in what my agent once told me, “As one door closes another will open.”

  Waiting to hear about Flitwick was agony. I jumped every time the phone rang and after three long weeks I’d just about given up all hope when my agent called.

  “Yes?!”

  “Well, don’t get too excited.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’ve got the part of Professor Flitwick and –”

  “Brilliant! Well, why shouldn’t I get too excited?”

  “Because, I was about to say, ‘You need to let me finish,’ because they want you to play the Goblin bank teller as well. Now you can go ahead and get excited.”

  “What? Another part? So two roles?” I said, hopping up and down. “Yes!”

  “See, I told you so,” Sam said.

  Suddenly I was all sunshine and smiles. Laughter returned to the Davis household once more.

  A few weeks later the costume department called me in for measurements. I was delighted to walk in and see that Nick Dudman, one of the finest makeup artists in the world, was running the makeup/effects department. Nick had overseen my very first life cast on the day I got the part in Jedi and I still have a diary entry noting the occasion from October 1981: “Met Patricia Carr and Nick and had my life cast. Let’s get on with it.”

  After we’d reminisced about the good old days on Jedi, Willow, and The Phantom Menace and caught up on each other’s news, Nick said, “Well, I think you know the routine by now, Warwick.”

  Having a life cast done is like being inside an isolation tank. Once my head had been covered with the first layer of alginate, I was totally cut off from the world. I was inside a warm womblike environment with a dim orange glow coming through my eyelids and a swooshing sound in my ears as the makeup people rubbed their hands, smoothing the alginate all over my head. I’m sure some people would find the procedure quite claustrophobic but to me it’s strangely relaxing.

  An exact copy of my head was then turned into a bust for the makeup department, so they could create prosthetics that precisely fitted my face.

  Although rumors flew about the studio, I still didn’t know who else was going to be in the film. I picked up some clues every time I came in for a fitting at the magical costume department, which was packed full of the most wonderful props, mannequins, materials, and clothing. Whenever I got the chance I’d have a nose around and would sometimes spot a famous name pinned to a wall or to a costume. I saw Robbie Coltrane’s name first, then Alan Rickman’s, then Maggie Smith’s. I became more and more excited at the prospect of working with all these great British actors.

  The makeup was incredible; it took four hours to put on and an hour to take off. I had to be at the studio for 4 a.m. to be made up and in costume for a 9 a.m. shoot that could last for up to twelve hours. I was quite used to it but some actors really, really struggled.

  People tend to think that being made up and wearing prosthetic makeup becomes a lot easier as time goes on, but it doesn’t, it’s actually the opposite. As the days drag by and you realize that those four torturous hours are inescapable, going to work – just to sit there, while people prod, stick, bend, fold, paint, and glue uncomfortable and smelly materials to your face – becomes more and more psychologically challenging.

  Imagine hearing your alarm go off at 3:15 every morning, then struggling to get to work for four o’clock only to have to sit in a makeup room and have your face painted with a strong-smelling, freezing-cold glue. Sometimes I felt like punching the glue-painter and I had to grip the armrest of my chair to restrain myself; I often joked that they should just tie me down as soon as I arrived.

  It’s very hard to stay combative with half a dozen people working on your face at the same
time – especially as they are all so focused on the job at hand that none of them really pays much attention to what you’re saying.

  Sometimes, despite all the gluing and prodding, I’d fall asleep and then hear occasional instructions such as “Warwick, can you look up?” and I’d look up and then fall asleep again.

  Despite all of the discomfort and mental torture involved in working with prosthetics, I always remind myself that without the likes of Nick Dudman, his brilliant team of makeup artists, and his glue I wouldn’t be able to play such a diverse range of characters. Prosthetics had even allowed me to play more than one character in the same film.

  It was during one such makeup session while we were filming Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone that Ron Howard called.

  “Warwick, I’ve got a pretty big problem.”

  “What is it, Ron, what’s up?”

  “I’m filming this movie called The Grinch, you know, the Dr. Seuss book. Jim Carrey’s playing the Grinch and he’s really, really struggling with the makeup.”

  “I see.”

  “It takes seven hours, every day, we’re trying to cut the time down but it’s driving the poor guy nuts. I’ve been made up as the Grinch too, and directed as the Grinch, to try and make him feel better by going through it with him. I’ve even got an expert in positivity from the Marines trying to help him through it, but it’s not working. I want to know how you cope, Warwick.”

  “I’m sorry, Ron, there’s no real answer. Being made up for one day is quite fun but if you’re doing it every day for months, and you’re the lead actor, well I think I’d go nuts, too.”

  Once my first day’s makeup was done, I donned my costume. I couldn’t believe how amazing it looked; it was just as I imagined, better even. I noticed it had a long, thin inside pocket and I couldn’t work out what it was for – until I looked at the wand in my hand. A wand pocket! Fantastic!

  If anything this added to the pressure. Makeup and Costume had done such a fantastic job and now, as I walked onto the set, I saw the set designers had as well.

  My first scene was filmed at Harrow School, in Winston Churchill’s old schoolroom, his signature scored into the dark oak panels a century before. Now it was full of books, parchments and scrolls, jars, hand-carved egg timers, Hogwarts emblems, and many other strange and wonderful things – including a box of magical sweets on my desk. Before me were the students I was supposed to be teaching as Professor Flitwick, including young Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, and Ms. Granger.

  When I first saw Dan, Rupert, and Emma, I could tell they had all the right qualities. They all knew their lines perfectly; it was immediately clear that they were competent young performers and it was going to be interesting to see how they developed as actors.

  But on that first day I was more concerned about my own performance, as this was my first big scene. Every other detail was indeed perfect, as they’d said at the audition. A huge team had put this together, including sculptors, mold-makers, painters, designers, seamstresses, shoemakers, hairdressers, and so on. All of these people were there to put me, the actor, on a wonderful stage. If I cocked up my performance then it would reflect badly on them, and their morale and the quality of the movie would suffer.

  If, on the other hand, I pulled it off then the entire team might talk about how good I was, and how amazing the film was going to be and so on; they would get excited about it and would go the extra mile to add all those little touches that can turn a good film into a great film.

  I also wanted to convince Chris and the producers that I was “perfect” as well – that they’d made the right choice.

  As the cameras rolled I began to teach the class how to levitate feathers and everything just slotted into place. I knew this amazing story inside out, thanks to J. K. Rowling’s brilliantly crafted book and thanks to the wonderful script. Now I was in it, really in it. We kept going all day, until Chris was convinced we’d got everything out of the scene that we possibly could.

  I returned to the makeup department where Nick was waiting for me. He had a tradition of celebrating at the end of an important day’s filming with a single bottle of beer. During Harry Potter, he moved on to margaritas, a clear sign of just how enormous his task was.

  I’m one of the few actors lucky enough to have appeared in every one of the Harry Potter films, so I’ve been part of the family from beginning to end. Thanks to the production team, who did a fantastic job and left no room for error, the Harry Potter films remain the smoothest operation I’ve ever been fortunate enough to be part of.

  Very little went wrong during filming, although I was involved in one small incident during Goblet of Fire. It was the scene where we were standing in the Great Hall with the goblet, which is covered by a cloth. Professor Snape (Alan Rickman) reveals the goblet to the pupils by magically whipping the cloth away and into the air.

  This special effect was achieved by firing air through a set of pipes behind the goblet, which shot the cloth skyward. The first time we did this it worked perfectly, except that the cloth, on its gentle return to the ground, decided to land perfectly across my face. Everyone tried to finish the scene but we all gradually disintegrated into giggles. Even the usually somber Snape cracked a slight smile.

  Alan and I got on quite well – although, the Potter franchise being such a well-oiled machine, we didn’t get much time to chat. Very often, the first time I’d meet someone as famous as Alan would be on the set. After a quick hello we’d just start acting.

  It sounds odd but it worked quite well – as soon as you start acting, you see the person you’re acting with through the eyes of your own character, which is just what you want. You don’t want to be thinking, “That’s Alan Rickman in front of me; he’s been in so many great films,” because before you know it you’ve forgotten your lines.

  Of course, Alan played the wonderful role of Severus Snape, Potions Master, described by J. K. Rowling as “a gift of a character.” Snape was almost the opposite of Flitwick, bullying his pupils and seeming terribly devious; you’d never know if he was really on your side.

  When Alan was made up and wearing his black robes he looked just as menacing as Snape should, but in between takes the illusion was often shattered by a little pair of white earphones, which snaked out from an iPod secreted somewhere in his costume. I often wondered what he listened to. I imagined a scene in Potter where the camera passes Snape’s office. His door is slightly ajar and we see Snape inside, dancing merrily, the tinny sound of Walking on Sunshine coming from his iPod earphones.

  There was one memorable occasion when I got to have a long chat with the older and more established actors. It was during a long night shoot when we had to wait a long time between shots while the special effects people arranged all their gizmos for a particularly explosive sequence.

  We were outside, and I was flattered to see that my chair had been put in a group with Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith (Minerva McGonagall), and Michael Gambon (Albus Dumbledore).

  The four of us sat, in full costume, huddled around a tiny heater chatting through the night. Michael was a masterful storyteller and told some incredible tales with fantastic punch lines – most of which I can’t remember – and I’ve been sworn to secrecy for those that I do.

  It was sometimes hard for me to follow the conversation because they’d use first names. For example, Michael might ask, “Have you worked with Robert?” and then you’d realize five minutes later that he was talking about de Niro.

  But there was one subject about which we both were experts.

  “What do you think of these beards, Warwick?” Michael asked.

  “Well, they’re a bit of a pain, to be perfectly honest.”

  “Yes, they most certainly are, these wisps get absolutely everywhere. If I use my arms and wand it always gets entangled and I yank the thing right off my face. And don’t get me started on food. Dinner is a total nightmare.”

  I nodded in wholehearted agreement.

&nbs
p; A couple of days later, we were having lunch in full costume when Michael sat down at the table with a large canvas bag. He tied it around his neck and placed his beard inside and then was able to eat his tagliatelle without having to worry about consuming half of his beard at the same time.

  How did the lucky sod get one of those? I wondered, as I battled with forks, pasta, and hair.

  Michael also loved a joke. After lunch one day, Michael’s makeup artist was removing his beardbag before a shot. As she pulled it away she was amazed to see that Michael had woven a string of prawns, vegetables, and other foody assortments into the beard.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” the famous actor said innocently.

  “Um . . . um,” the flustered makeup artist replied, “your beard, er . . .”