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

furballs.
     
    George appeared on the set one day and asked me to come to Amanda’s party in costume at his house and be Wicket for the day. “Sure!” I said, “that’d be cool!”
     
    I arrived at George’s fabulously enormous house just as all the kids were playing in the pool. They screamed when they saw me. “Let’s see if Wicket wants to go swimming!” one girl with pink cheeks and pigtails said.
     
    I was under strict instructions not to ruin things by talking (at this stage Ewoks didn’t speak English, neither did they sound like fourteen-year-old boys), so I backed away quickly, even though I was sorely tempted to risk drowning. It was a hundred degrees and I was melting inside that costume.
     
    As soon as the chance presented itself, I dashed back inside for a brief “heads off” moment before returning again in my highly flammable costume carrying the cake complete with four burning candles. Everyone sang “Happy Birthday” and I cut a slice for the birthday girl. She then generously decided to share her cake with me. Of course, my costume wouldn’t allow me to bite and eat but that didn’t prevent the little girl from shoving the cake straight through the costume’s mouth hole. Suddenly all of the little angels wanted to feed the Ewok and so they rammed cake into my mouth until my Ewok head was full and I started to suffocate. Fortunately the parents rescued me – “Wicket’s feeling a bit tired and full now, children, time for his nap” – and carried me away as I started to cough urgently. When they took the head off about a pound of cake slopped onto George’s lounge carpet.
     

     
    The Battle for Endor quickly followed the success of Caravan of Courage. The plot involved a grumpy old spaceman and Wicket becoming friends. I was thrilled to bits to be Wicket once more; it was becoming a yearly treat and this time I was allowed to bring Daniel.
     
    Daniel and I had an amazing time. To us, back in 1985, America really was the greatest country in the world by far. It was still a world of dreams and its image – among young people – had yet to be tarnished. It was the land that had everything your heart could possibly desire, from frozen yogurt to Disneyland, with a Dunkin’ Donuts and a McDonald’s on every street (most English towns didn’t have McDonald’s back then). But most of all it was the land of movies and back then you could see new films ages, sometimes years before they came out in the UK, conferring upon us substantial bragging rights for months after we returned home.
     
    “Oh, we saw that when we were in America, didn’t we, Warwick?”
     
    And then I’d torture them by saying, “Yeah, it was brilliant, you have to see it.”
     
    While we were in the States, Mum got another call from Elstree, this time from Jim Henson Productions.
     
    “Do you think Warwick would like to be a goblin?” they asked. “We’re making a movie called Labyrinth with David Bowie and we need experienced little people.”
     

     

    Chapter Six
     
    Starman in My Caravan
     
    My father-in law, Peter Burroughs, with David Bowie on the set of Labyrinth . I was probably in my trailer when this was taken.
     
     
    Sam with the Goblin King.
     
     
    Battle for Endor and Labyrinth were being made at the same time but with a little clever synchronization of schedules, made easier by the fact that George Lucas was executive producer on each of the movies, I was all set to appear in both. My role in Labyrinth was more in the background and, thanks to animatronics, I was able to play two goblins called Bumpot and WW2. The film starred David Bowie, directed by Jim Henson, puppeteered by Frank Oz, and written by Terry Jones. You couldn’t get any better than that. My life cast was made at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in leafy Downshire Hill (which ran off Willow Road!) in Hampstead, North London.
     
    Jim’s studio wasn’t as big as I’d imagined and was both warehouse and workshop. It was