Read Size Matters Not: The Extraordinary Life and Career of Warwick Davis for Free Online Page A
Authors: Warwick Davis
Chelsea goalkeeper (this was filmed at Stamford Bridge on match day), I decide to become an actor.
To cut a long story short, I end up backstage on the set of Jedi . Viewing the film after all this time I can’t believe the state of the dressing rooms. These were the stars of the film and they had these tiny, drafty boxes with a chair, a shoddy plywood desk, and quite possibly the most depressing 1970s paisley curtains ever made. The dodgy furniture must have been especially hard to bear for former custom carpenter Harrison Ford; he was making a portico for Francis Ford Coppola when George gave him the break of a lifetime and offered him the part of Han Solo.
In the film, I meet Han who then takes me to Mark’s dressing room where he’s also in costume. Sadly, neither of them know about Ewoks or where they live. “Let’s ask Carrie,” Mark says . . . and sure enough, we do.
And whoah ! Cue wolf whistles and a sudden increase in advance bookings for Jedi . Carrie is in the gold bikini, with very little left to the imagination.
Carrie had apparently complained about her costumes in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back , saying they were so long and shapeless that no one could tell she was a woman. So she asked George Lucas if she could wear something “womanly.” Bearing in mind that, in George Lucas’s words, “there is no underwear in space,” the costume designers did remarkably well to come up with a matching metal bikini, which revealed that Carrie was – absotively posilutely – a woman.
The problem was the metal didn’t always follow Carrie’s body, so there were numerous “wardrobe malfunctions” during which certain parts of her anatomy made unexpected appearances – I didn’t see it, but it happened in the scene where she strangles Jabba the Hutt, for example. For the action sequences a rubber version was made so Carrie could leap about without fear of embarrassment.
Anyway, back to Return of the Ewok . Carrie turns this way and that and then looks down and bends forward to talk to me.
I got a little wobbly at this point. I wasn’t sure why exactly – I was just on the cusp of adolescence so I wasn’t able to fully appreciate the loveliness of Carrie’s outfit. But I did notice that the eyes of my costume steamed up a little quicker.
David had asked Mum and Dad to appear in this promo film (they were supposed to have flown on a space cruiser to pick me up from Endor at the end of my adventures) and they dressed up in their Sunday best for the occasion. When they arrived on set, David said, “I want you to walk through those brambles, nettles, across that mud, then through that ditch toward Warwick who’s coming down the hill toward you.”
Being English and overly polite they failed to point out to David that they had dressed in their Sunday best, wearing heels and brogues, and that the last thing they were able or willing to do was fight their way up the swampiest, brambliest hill in the world. But struggle they did (for several takes) – and then walked back down again afterward. You can clearly see that Dad was desperately trying not to slip as he gingerly fought his way down the impossibly steep hill.
Their dialogue was added in later.
Mum: Oh, Warwick, there you are.
Dad: Where on Earth have you been?
Me: I’ve been in a movie, which reminds me, could I have my pocket money? I need to pay my agent ten percent.
Mum: You won’t be getting any pocket money for a very long time. Do you realize how much it costs to hire a rocket these days?
Me: We could always get a lift back in the Millennium Falcon .
Dad: Don’t be ridiculous. Stop these fantasies immediately. Who’s that little green man?
Yoda: May the Force be with you . . . Dad.
It was completely nuts but hilarious.
One day on the set producer Robert Watts asked me to sit in front of a white screen while I was photographed in and out of
To cut a long story short, I end up backstage on the set of Jedi . Viewing the film after all this time I can’t believe the state of the dressing rooms. These were the stars of the film and they had these tiny, drafty boxes with a chair, a shoddy plywood desk, and quite possibly the most depressing 1970s paisley curtains ever made. The dodgy furniture must have been especially hard to bear for former custom carpenter Harrison Ford; he was making a portico for Francis Ford Coppola when George gave him the break of a lifetime and offered him the part of Han Solo.
In the film, I meet Han who then takes me to Mark’s dressing room where he’s also in costume. Sadly, neither of them know about Ewoks or where they live. “Let’s ask Carrie,” Mark says . . . and sure enough, we do.
And whoah ! Cue wolf whistles and a sudden increase in advance bookings for Jedi . Carrie is in the gold bikini, with very little left to the imagination.
Carrie had apparently complained about her costumes in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back , saying they were so long and shapeless that no one could tell she was a woman. So she asked George Lucas if she could wear something “womanly.” Bearing in mind that, in George Lucas’s words, “there is no underwear in space,” the costume designers did remarkably well to come up with a matching metal bikini, which revealed that Carrie was – absotively posilutely – a woman.
The problem was the metal didn’t always follow Carrie’s body, so there were numerous “wardrobe malfunctions” during which certain parts of her anatomy made unexpected appearances – I didn’t see it, but it happened in the scene where she strangles Jabba the Hutt, for example. For the action sequences a rubber version was made so Carrie could leap about without fear of embarrassment.
Anyway, back to Return of the Ewok . Carrie turns this way and that and then looks down and bends forward to talk to me.
I got a little wobbly at this point. I wasn’t sure why exactly – I was just on the cusp of adolescence so I wasn’t able to fully appreciate the loveliness of Carrie’s outfit. But I did notice that the eyes of my costume steamed up a little quicker.
David had asked Mum and Dad to appear in this promo film (they were supposed to have flown on a space cruiser to pick me up from Endor at the end of my adventures) and they dressed up in their Sunday best for the occasion. When they arrived on set, David said, “I want you to walk through those brambles, nettles, across that mud, then through that ditch toward Warwick who’s coming down the hill toward you.”
Being English and overly polite they failed to point out to David that they had dressed in their Sunday best, wearing heels and brogues, and that the last thing they were able or willing to do was fight their way up the swampiest, brambliest hill in the world. But struggle they did (for several takes) – and then walked back down again afterward. You can clearly see that Dad was desperately trying not to slip as he gingerly fought his way down the impossibly steep hill.
Their dialogue was added in later.
Mum: Oh, Warwick, there you are.
Dad: Where on Earth have you been?
Me: I’ve been in a movie, which reminds me, could I have my pocket money? I need to pay my agent ten percent.
Mum: You won’t be getting any pocket money for a very long time. Do you realize how much it costs to hire a rocket these days?
Me: We could always get a lift back in the Millennium Falcon .
Dad: Don’t be ridiculous. Stop these fantasies immediately. Who’s that little green man?
Yoda: May the Force be with you . . . Dad.
It was completely nuts but hilarious.
One day on the set producer Robert Watts asked me to sit in front of a white screen while I was photographed in and out of
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