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

packed floor to ceiling with Muppets, all sorts of weird creature creations, and casts of famous people’s bits and pieces. Powerful odors of glue, clay, and fiberglass fought for supremacy. It may have been me but the glue seemed to be winning – the puppet makers all walked around in a happy, dreamy daze.
     
    Jim Henson used to live right opposite the studio. So afterward, covered in Vaseline and goodness knows what else, I was sent to have a shower in his house. He wasn’t there at the time, so I had the place to myself. Like the studio, it was packed full of Muppets. Kermit sat on a window ledge in the bathroom while Beaker and Gonzo the Great propped each other up on a chair in the hall and a collection of Miss Piggy’s wigs was piled on a hallway shelf.
     
    It was brilliant but kind of freaky. I half-expected the characters to spring into life and start singing the theme song to The Muppet Show . I even protected my modesty by turning Kermit’s head away from me while I was in the shower.
     
    The life cast done, a it was time to begin filming. Labyrinth was shot at Elstree, on one of the stages used in Jedi . Now it’s all gone and a Tesco stands in its place (some would say that’s another empire to be fearful of). The Ewok Village set once stood right where the fish counter is today.
     
    Although I wasn’t in any scenes with David Bowie and his spectacular trousers, b I did manage to get a brief audience with the Goblin King and David was completely delightful. He seemed to be really enjoying making the film and was always in good spirits.
     
    I was in the general goblin melee along with many other little people. The cast of Labyrinth contained many former Ewoks, including my good friend Peter Burroughs and his daughter Sam. Peter was also a stunt goblin. In one scene he had to swing over a castle wall. He was counted in on three, coordinated by the stunt director. Unfortunately, his assistant had steered a gaggle of goblins directly into his arc and despite desperate if confusing screams of “Duck!” and “Heads up!” Peter scattered them all like bowling pins.
     
    I was into radio-controlled cars in those days and would amuse myself between scenes by racing my latest snazzy model around Elstree. I thought I was very cool and believed my wizardry with the remote control was something quite magnificent to behold. I even had dreams of turning pro and getting sponsorship. (When Sam saw me doing this for the first time, she sighed, “What a spoiled little brat.”)
     
    A lot of the film involved my fellow goblins and me being chased by radio-controlled rocks of all sizes. They ranged from about five feet across to the size of a pebble. A guy with the controller would get them to roll using a powerful motor and steered them using an internal gimbal. They were a little unreliable, though, and their inertia would sometimes get the better of them so I’d still be running for my life long after Henson yelled “Cut!”
     
    While many were mechanized, there were also plenty of rubber boulders that were simply rolled downhill toward us. Sometimes, in an effort to make the rocks look as if they were chasing us, we were fastened to them with thin cables – but we often became entangled and would land flat on our faces before the giant stone rolled over us.
     
    Jim had problems when the rocks were meant to chase me uphill and into my house. After some thought and experimenting with my video camera, I came up with the bright idea of running backward with the rocks rolling downhill after me. “Reverse the film and voila!” I said.
     
    It worked and I was convinced I was a cinematic genius in the making.
     
    There were quite a few accidents during the filming of Labyrinth . My animatronic head was made of fiberglass and metal and I had a moving beak attached to my chin. In one scene I had to run across an alleyway while being chased by goblins that were riding weird ostrich Muppet costumes, each operated by