Davis revives role ‘that gave me everything’
‘Willow’ proved actor could be face of Hollywood epic
In a hotel suite overlooking a darkening Leicester Square in London, actor Warwick Davis picked up a pair of opera glasses and pointed them in the direction of the Empire Cinema. In 1988, he was there attending the London premiere of “Willow,” a swashbuckling comedyadventure movie directed by Ron Howard with a story by George Lucas, who executive produced. It stars Davis and Val Kilmer as sorcerer and scoundrel, the bickering protectors of a baby princess with magic powers.
Davis remembered being seated next to another princess, Diana, sandwiched between her and Prince Charles. “I was holding the popcorn,” Davis joked, adding, “Diana said to me, at the end of the movie,
‘You give us princesses a rough ride.’ ”
“Willow” remains a standout role for Davis,
52, who is a stalwart of sci-fi, horror and fantasy franchises including “Star Wars,” the “Leprechaun” films and “Harry Potter.”
He has been immortalized in plastic many, many times. “I hold the record for the most mini figures of characters I’ve played,” he said with mock seriousness.
“Willow” was not a hit despite its illustrious pedigree. It received middling reviews and was perceived as a rare misfire by Lucas, architect of the “Star Wars” and (with Steven Spielberg) “Indiana Jones” franchises. But it left a mark on a then-8-year-old Jonathan Kasdan, creator of an eight-episode TV sequel now streaming on Disney+.
In a phone interview, Kasdan, whose father, Lawrence, co-wrote some of Lucas’ most celebrated films, including the original “Star Wars” trilogy and “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” described “Willow” as “a giant, very tactile adventure with this small person at the center of it.” He added that Davis, as the kind, clearheaded Willow, a farmer who learns sorcery, was “an incredibly relatable movie star.”
The series, set roughly 20 years after the events of the movie, sees the return of an older, wiser and altogether more reluctant Willow, this time shepherding a found family of ragtag misfits (played by Ruby Cruz, Erin Kellyman, Ellie Bamber, Tony Revolori and Amar Chadha-Patel) in search of a kidnapped prince.
For Davis, the TV show allowed him to return to what is arguably still his signature character, the one that proved that a young actor used to performing in creature costumes could be the face of a Hollywood epic.
“It was the role that gave me everything,” he said.
Davis grew up just south of London in the 1970s. Davis, who has spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita and is 3 feet, 6 inches tall, had various medical issues as a child but said his parents, who were of average size, “let me do everything I wanted.”
The big, fun-loving personality Davis developed, he said, is partly a result of his size. “When you’re shorter than average at school, the conversation is happening 2 feet above you,” he said.
“You become louder and funnier so you get noticed,” he explained. “I became this larger-than-life character just so I wouldn’t get left out.”
Davis began acting at age 11, donning a fuzzy suit and mask to play an Ewok, Wicket W. Warrick, in the “Star Wars” sequel “Return of the Jedi.” He went on to reprise the character in several made-for-TV spinoffs, and during filming for “Star Wars: Ewok Adventures,” Davis said, Lucas told his mother about an idea he had for the actor once he was older.
Filmed when he was 17, “Willow” offered Davis his first opportunity to “pop out” from behind a mask and be a “proper actor,” he said. It also changed his life in ways that went beyond his career.
Davis’ future wife, Samantha, was an extra on “Willow,” and Davis approached her at the premiere after-party in London. “I didn’t actively chat her up, but she said I did,” he said. “She said, ‘You kind of wooed me that night.’ ” Davis began to cry as he told this story, then paused and cleared his throat. “I get emotional talking about that.”
Despite the mixed reviews, “Willow” was profitable, earning over $110 million worldwide (the equivalent of around $270 million today), and it had a long afterlife in home video. But for Davis, it gave way to a five-year lull in which “there were no scripts, none at all.”
Then in the early
1990s, the script for the horror-comedy “Leprechaun” landed on his desk. A twisted subversion of the mythical Irish creature, the film offered Davis a chance to prove that “I can do more than be a nice, happy sorcerer,” he said. “‘Leprechaun’ was a chance to really go crazy.”
It went on to become a cult hit, and Davis reprised the role in five more movies.
The actor, who grew up watching “Laurel and Hardy,” loves physical comedy, particularly when it’s at his own expense. He built self-deprecating slapstick into “Life’s Too Short,” the showbiz satire series he created with
Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, which starred Davis as a fictional version of himself.
“If I fall over or drop something, I will laugh at that,” he said.
His sense of humor exists alongside a seriousness of purpose. In 1996, he set up Willow Management, an agency representing actors with dwarfism. He has continued his advocacy as he has racked up credits in some of Hollywood’s biggest franchises — he appeared in all of the “Harry Potter” films and most of the “Star Wars” ones since “Jedi” — founding a charity, Little People UK, in 2012 with his wife and creating the Reduced Height Theatre Company.
“I thought it’s about time these guys got to do something important instead of just dressing up and playing elves,” he said.
When Kasdan approached him about reviving “Willow,” Davis was keen to “have another go,” he said. Now a father of two, he said he was armed with a parent’s understanding of what it means to be responsible for another human’s life — and “to make sure the path it takes is a good one, the right one as well.”
Davis brought another thing to the sequel that he didn’t have the first time around: a veteran movie star’s confidence.
Kasdan said, “I had this very clear image in my head of him, with this graying long hair, and how powerful that could be.”
He was convinced that it would be the best that Davis had ever looked on-screen.
Davis said that when he finally donned Willow’s wig, he could only agree.