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Warwick Davis
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Warwick Ashley Davis (born February 3, 1970) is an English actor. He is noted for having dwarfism, standing only 3 ft 6 in (1.07 m) tall. Davis is probably best known as the title character in Willow, Wicket W. Warrick in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Professor Flitwick in the Harry Potter movies, and the title character in Leprechaun and its sequels.
Contents
- 1 Biography
- 1.1 Early life
- 1.2 Adult career
- 1.3 Personal life
- 2 Filmography
- 3 External links
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Biography
Early life
Davis was born in Epsom, Surrey, England to an insurance broker father and a homemaker mother. He has a younger sister. His foray into acting came about "purely by chance". When he was 11, his grandmother heard a radio ad in 1981 calling for people that were 4 ft. tall or shorter to be in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. To Warwick, who was a big fan of the Star Wars movies, it was a dream come true. He was originally just going to be an extra Ewok, but when Kenny Baker, who was originally going to be Wicket, fell ill, George Lucas picked Warwick to be the new Wicket after seeing how he carried himself as an Ewok. Warwick based his Ewok movements on his dog, who would tilt his head from side to side whenever he saw something strange. A little known fact is that during production on the film, he made a short mockumentary film about his experience as Wicket, titled Return of the Ewok, made with help from Return of the Jedi's first assistant director, David Tomblin. The unreleased film was a fictional look at his decision to become an actor and act in the movie and his transformation into Wicket the Ewok. Warwick was so talented as Wicket that he reprised his role in the ABC made-for-TV movies Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. He later, in 1985, appeared in the film Labyrinth with David Bowie and others.
Adult career
In 1987, Davis was called to Elstree Studios in London to meet with
Ron Howard and George Lucas to discuss a new movie project called
Willow, which was written with Warwick specifically in mind.
Willow was Warwick's first opportunity to act with his face visible. He co-starred with
Val Kilmer in the film, which received a
Royal Premiere before the
Prince and
Princess of Wales. He then went back to television to be in the
BBC television adaptation of the classic
The Chronicles of Narnia, specifically in
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (as
Reepicheep) and
The Silver Chair (as
Glimfeather).
It was then, in 1993, that he played the villain in Leprechaun, something that he really had been wanting to do. He then returned to the Star Wars universe, playing 3 roles in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace: Weazel, a gambler sitting next to Watto at the Podrace; Wald, who was Anakin's Rodian buddy; and Yoda in scenes where Yoda was walking.
Lately, Davis has become famous for playing the role of Professor Filius Flitwick in the Harry Potter films. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which was released in November 2005, is the latest film to feature Professor Flitwick. Warwick played a white-moustached Flitwick in the first two movies, and then a brown-haired unnamed chorus conductor (presumably Flitwick but not credited as such) for the third installment of the series. In the fourth movie, Flitwick is younger looking, with short, brown hair and a trimmed moustache. Although this was a strange deviation from the original Flitwick for most fans, it is probably closer to what J.K. Rowling envisioned when writing the character, as she described him on her website as being mostly human but having a very distant Goblin ancestor that resulted in his short stature, as opposed to the Goblin-looking Flitwick seen in the first two Harry Potter films. Davis also played a goblin in Gringotts in the first film, specifically the goblin that Hagrid talks to about Harry's vault and hands him the key to the vault where the Sorcerer's Stone is kept.
Warwick recently starred in the film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, as the "body" of Marvin the Paranoid Android (i.e., the actor within the costume; the voice for the character was provided by Alan Rickman, who coincidently also plays a professor in the Harry Potter film series, Professor Snape). In December 2006, Davis starred in the pantomime Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, at Manchester Opera House. He stars alongside Suranne Jones, Justin Moorhouse, John Savident and not forgetting the other six dwarves.
In addition to his acting career, Davis is the co-founder of a talent agency (Willow Management, founded in 1995) that specialises in representing actors under five feet tall. As of 2004, his agency also began representing actors over seven feet tall.
Personal life
Unlike most dwarfs (70%) who have a condition called achondroplasia, Warwick's dwarfism is caused by an extremely rare genetic condition called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita. Warwick has said the only real drawback to being small was the associated health problems. Of his own dwarfism (SED), Warwick has said "As you get older, you can suffer from painful hips, and our joints wear a lot quicker than for people of average height."
Warwick's family includes a wife and two children, who live in Yaxley near Peterborough. His wife, Samantha (b. 1971) has achondroplasia, as do his children Annabelle (b. 1998) and Harrison (b. 2003).
Filmography
