'If I had my life again, I'd be exactly as I am'
Warwick Davis is a busy man. He’s currently playing Patsy, sidekick to Les Dennis’s King Arthur, in Spamalot. Then it’s more or less straight into rehearsals for Snow White at Christmas with Jennifer Ellison in Milton Keynes. He’s directing it, too.
Last year, he appeared alongside Priscilla Presley in Snow White at Wimbledon. ‘That was quite something,’ he says, in his Spamalot dressing room at London’s Playhouse Theatre. ‘The Americans don’t understand the pantomime tradition so it took her a moment or two to get used to being booed. She was playing the Wicked Queen, so I explained that she should only start worrying if she wasn’t being booed.’
After this year’s Snow White, he’s launching a new venture, The Reduced Height Theatre Company, with which he’ll tour the UK in a cast entirely comprising ‘short people’ (as he calls them) in a production of the classic farce, See How They Run. This will realise a long-held ambition as well as providing work for the roster of actors on the books of Willow Management, the agency he runs with his father-in-law, Peter Burroughs, who’s also of restricted height. ‘The set will be scaled down to suit the cast. I hope audiences will be drawn in by the performances, though, rather than any of the comedy coming from the fact we’re all short actors.’
Warwick was born with a rare genetic condition, spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita (SED), as opposed to achondroplasia, which accounts for 70 per cent of dwarfism. His parents, Sue and Ashley, and his sister Kim, are all average size. He stands 3ft 6in tall.
Looking back now, he says, he can’t really remember the point at which he knew he was diff erent. ‘There’s no single memory and nor was it a trauma. But then my parents were wonderful. They always instilled in me such a feeling of confi dence and self-esteem.
‘I went to regular schools. I had a wide circle of friends. I wasn’t teased beyond being called Titch and the like. I had such a good sense of who I was that I was never a target. And I can honestly say I never shook my fi st at the Almighty and said: “Why me?”. In fact, if I had my life over again, I’d choose to be exactly as I am.’
His welcome, if unlikely, break in show business, flowed from a single piece of good fortune. His paternal grandmother, Eileen, heard an advert on LBC when Warwick was 11 – he’s now 43 – saying the producers of what would be the third Star Wars film were looking for short people. ‘She mentioned it to my mum who phoned the studio only to be told they’d been inundated with calls. But when she explained my age, they invited me along and I was cast as a young Ewok.’
During filming, he was asked to go to America with four or five other Ewoks. Then Kenny Baker, who had a scene where his character discovers Carrie Fisher after she’s crashed on her bike, got food poisoning and Warwick stepped into his role of Wicket the Ewok. Director George Lucas then wrote two Ewok made-for-TV films in which Warwick had a leading role.
At 14, he met Samantha on the set of the film Labyrinth. She had been born with achondroplasia. ‘Sam remembers me as an annoying brat playing with a radio-controlled car.’
Both were later in the film Willow, directed by Ron Howard. ‘I loved it because it showed me for who I really am rather than dressed in a creature costume.’But it wasn’t until they were in a pantomime in Cambridge in 1988 – each was one of the Seven Dwarves – that they started taking any notice of each other. They married three years later.
‘When we decided to have children, one of four things could have happened. Any child would be average size, or inherit my condition, or Sam’s condition, or both, which would be fatal.’ And so it proved.
Their first baby, a boy called Lloyd, survived just nine days. ‘That was very tough so to go on to have Annabel (now 16) and Harrison (10)’ – both of whom inherited Sam’s genetic condition – ‘made us doubly grateful. And because they’ve never seen size hold us back, they’ve never felt it would impede them in any way.’
Left: in film Willow. Right: as Wicket the Ewok in Star Wars
After his early success, the work dried up. It’s why he’ll always be grateful to a horror film called Leprechaun. ‘I hadn’t worked for almost a year but I also loved the fact that I was cast as an evil character for a change.’ In the end, he made six Leprechaun films and he has never looked back.
He couldn’t have told you whether or not he could act. But he feels that his limited height taught him early on that you have to be bigger, brighter and bolder to get noticed. ‘Life encouraged me to be a showman, something I’m now seeing in my own son.’
Part of life, of course, is also being in the right place at the right time. When the first of the Harry Potter films was announced in 2000, Warwick was cast as Professor Flitwick, a part he played in all eight movies. Each film could take up to 10 months to shoot, so the cast regulars became like a family, he says.
He loved working with Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman and with the youngsters, too. ‘Completing the last movie was really sad. Daniel Radcliffe stood up on a plastic chair in the studio having filmed his final scene ever as Harry and said: “You know what? I don’t know what’s going to happen to me now. This is all I’ve ever known.” It was quite an emotional day. As it happens, he’s managed to make the transition to adult actor with real success.’
He smiles. ‘Funnily enough, Dan’s not very tall. When we started the first film, he was the same height as me although he overtook me some time ago.’ Now JK Rowling is writing an original screenplay based on the Fantastic Beasts book mentioned in the Potter films. And might there be a part in it for Warwick? ‘There might indeed,’ he says.
One day in 2006, the phone rang in his kitchen. The voice at the other end announced himself as Ricky Gervais. ‘My first reaction was that it was a mate mucking about. But I quickly realised it was the real Ricky with an offer for me to appear in an episode of his new series, Extras, funnily enough alongside Daniel Radcliffe.’
Warwick himself came up with the subsequent idea behind Life’s Too Short. He’d play an unlovely actor – ‘a sort of Napoleonic version of the real me’ – surrounded by flunkeys and smart cars and living in a huge mansion. ‘I sent an outline of the idea to Ricky and then didn’t hear anything until I picked up a message on my mobile saying that Ricky and his cowriter, Stephen Merchant, wanted to turn it into a TV comedy series.’
We’ll next see Warwick on the small screen in a travel series already filmed for ITV . There are also a couple of film opportunities about which he can’t yet talk. What about any unfulfilled ambitions? ‘I’d like my own chat show,’ he says.
Any time away from his busy schedule is spent with the family. ‘We like to go camping. We’ve got every form of static and touring caravan you can imagine and all the camping gear. There’s nothing we enjoy more, if I’m not working on a Friday, heading off to the Lake District for a weekend under canvas.’
So am I looking at a contented man? ‘Very.’ And nor does he hesitate. ‘Whether it’s family life or career, I couldn’t be happier. I’d like to be more organised, though. One day, I’ll get to sort through all those photographs I’ve got stored on a hard drive. But I’ll never retire. I’d climb up the curtains.’
Pause. ‘In years to come, I can only hope there’ll be a need for an old, wrinkly, short actor,’ says Warwick Davis, with his widest smile.
Warwick Davis is appearing as Patsy in Spamalot at The Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Avenue, London WC2, until 19 October: 0844-871 7631, www.spamalotwestend.co.uk
Last year, he appeared alongside Priscilla Presley in Snow White at Wimbledon. ‘That was quite something,’ he says, in his Spamalot dressing room at London’s Playhouse Theatre. ‘The Americans don’t understand the pantomime tradition so it took her a moment or two to get used to being booed. She was playing the Wicked Queen, so I explained that she should only start worrying if she wasn’t being booed.’
After this year’s Snow White, he’s launching a new venture, The Reduced Height Theatre Company, with which he’ll tour the UK in a cast entirely comprising ‘short people’ (as he calls them) in a production of the classic farce, See How They Run. This will realise a long-held ambition as well as providing work for the roster of actors on the books of Willow Management, the agency he runs with his father-in-law, Peter Burroughs, who’s also of restricted height. ‘The set will be scaled down to suit the cast. I hope audiences will be drawn in by the performances, though, rather than any of the comedy coming from the fact we’re all short actors.’
Warwick was born with a rare genetic condition, spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita (SED), as opposed to achondroplasia, which accounts for 70 per cent of dwarfism. His parents, Sue and Ashley, and his sister Kim, are all average size. He stands 3ft 6in tall.
Looking back now, he says, he can’t really remember the point at which he knew he was diff erent. ‘There’s no single memory and nor was it a trauma. But then my parents were wonderful. They always instilled in me such a feeling of confi dence and self-esteem.
‘I went to regular schools. I had a wide circle of friends. I wasn’t teased beyond being called Titch and the like. I had such a good sense of who I was that I was never a target. And I can honestly say I never shook my fi st at the Almighty and said: “Why me?”. In fact, if I had my life over again, I’d choose to be exactly as I am.’
His welcome, if unlikely, break in show business, flowed from a single piece of good fortune. His paternal grandmother, Eileen, heard an advert on LBC when Warwick was 11 – he’s now 43 – saying the producers of what would be the third Star Wars film were looking for short people. ‘She mentioned it to my mum who phoned the studio only to be told they’d been inundated with calls. But when she explained my age, they invited me along and I was cast as a young Ewok.’
During filming, he was asked to go to America with four or five other Ewoks. Then Kenny Baker, who had a scene where his character discovers Carrie Fisher after she’s crashed on her bike, got food poisoning and Warwick stepped into his role of Wicket the Ewok. Director George Lucas then wrote two Ewok made-for-TV films in which Warwick had a leading role.
At 14, he met Samantha on the set of the film Labyrinth. She had been born with achondroplasia. ‘Sam remembers me as an annoying brat playing with a radio-controlled car.’
Both were later in the film Willow, directed by Ron Howard. ‘I loved it because it showed me for who I really am rather than dressed in a creature costume.’But it wasn’t until they were in a pantomime in Cambridge in 1988 – each was one of the Seven Dwarves – that they started taking any notice of each other. They married three years later.
‘When we decided to have children, one of four things could have happened. Any child would be average size, or inherit my condition, or Sam’s condition, or both, which would be fatal.’ And so it proved.
Their first baby, a boy called Lloyd, survived just nine days. ‘That was very tough so to go on to have Annabel (now 16) and Harrison (10)’ – both of whom inherited Sam’s genetic condition – ‘made us doubly grateful. And because they’ve never seen size hold us back, they’ve never felt it would impede them in any way.’
Left: in film Willow. Right: as Wicket the Ewok in Star WarsAfter his early success, the work dried up. It’s why he’ll always be grateful to a horror film called Leprechaun. ‘I hadn’t worked for almost a year but I also loved the fact that I was cast as an evil character for a change.’ In the end, he made six Leprechaun films and he has never looked back.
He couldn’t have told you whether or not he could act. But he feels that his limited height taught him early on that you have to be bigger, brighter and bolder to get noticed. ‘Life encouraged me to be a showman, something I’m now seeing in my own son.’
Part of life, of course, is also being in the right place at the right time. When the first of the Harry Potter films was announced in 2000, Warwick was cast as Professor Flitwick, a part he played in all eight movies. Each film could take up to 10 months to shoot, so the cast regulars became like a family, he says.
He loved working with Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman and with the youngsters, too. ‘Completing the last movie was really sad. Daniel Radcliffe stood up on a plastic chair in the studio having filmed his final scene ever as Harry and said: “You know what? I don’t know what’s going to happen to me now. This is all I’ve ever known.” It was quite an emotional day. As it happens, he’s managed to make the transition to adult actor with real success.’
He smiles. ‘Funnily enough, Dan’s not very tall. When we started the first film, he was the same height as me although he overtook me some time ago.’ Now JK Rowling is writing an original screenplay based on the Fantastic Beasts book mentioned in the Potter films. And might there be a part in it for Warwick? ‘There might indeed,’ he says.
One day in 2006, the phone rang in his kitchen. The voice at the other end announced himself as Ricky Gervais. ‘My first reaction was that it was a mate mucking about. But I quickly realised it was the real Ricky with an offer for me to appear in an episode of his new series, Extras, funnily enough alongside Daniel Radcliffe.’
Warwick himself came up with the subsequent idea behind Life’s Too Short. He’d play an unlovely actor – ‘a sort of Napoleonic version of the real me’ – surrounded by flunkeys and smart cars and living in a huge mansion. ‘I sent an outline of the idea to Ricky and then didn’t hear anything until I picked up a message on my mobile saying that Ricky and his cowriter, Stephen Merchant, wanted to turn it into a TV comedy series.’
We’ll next see Warwick on the small screen in a travel series already filmed for ITV . There are also a couple of film opportunities about which he can’t yet talk. What about any unfulfilled ambitions? ‘I’d like my own chat show,’ he says.
Any time away from his busy schedule is spent with the family. ‘We like to go camping. We’ve got every form of static and touring caravan you can imagine and all the camping gear. There’s nothing we enjoy more, if I’m not working on a Friday, heading off to the Lake District for a weekend under canvas.’
So am I looking at a contented man? ‘Very.’ And nor does he hesitate. ‘Whether it’s family life or career, I couldn’t be happier. I’d like to be more organised, though. One day, I’ll get to sort through all those photographs I’ve got stored on a hard drive. But I’ll never retire. I’d climb up the curtains.’
Pause. ‘In years to come, I can only hope there’ll be a need for an old, wrinkly, short actor,’ says Warwick Davis, with his widest smile.
Warwick Davis is appearing as Patsy in Spamalot at The Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Avenue, London WC2, until 19 October: 0844-871 7631, www.spamalotwestend.co.uk