As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride (17 page)

There were three actors playing R.O.U.S. in all, but Danny was appointed to be the one who would do much of the heavy lifting, and the one I would wrestle with over the course of the next two days. It was no picnic for these guys in the rat suits. First, they were encased in fifty pounds of latex, rubber, and fake fur—roughly half their own body weight. Second, they’d have to use their hands to control the front feet of the rat and their legs to sort of kick with the rear feet in order to maneuver. And third, their vision would be extremely limited.

“This is going to be kind of strange,” Peter Diamond explained. “When you fight with them, you’ll be using this retractable sword,” he said handing it to me, “and Danny is going to pretend to bite you. But don’t worry, the teeth are all rubber. It’s all fake. Now, the challenge is that Danny won’t be able to see much of anything through the suit, so you’re going to have to make him move while you’re fighting with him. He won’t have much of a clue about what’s going on.”

“Really?”

“Not much, no,” Peter responded.

I looked over at Danny, who was still being sewn into his rat costume. He gave me a huge grin and a thumbs-up.

“Just remember, these suits are not very comfortable; it’s very hot in
there for him. We don’t want this to drag on for too long, so try to get it over with as quickly as possible, okay?”

“Sure. No problem.”

Since it was getting late, it was decided that we should just rehearse the fight sequence in preparation to shoot it the following morning. So we practiced the wrestling and the bite on the shoulder over and over. We’d always check on the guys inside the R.O.U.S. costumes every few minutes to make sure they weren’t percolating. They wore only T-shirts and boxers, but they’d still be drenched with sweat whenever we took a break and they were allowed to remove their giant rat heads.

“You okay in there?” I asked Danny after one rehearsal.

“Yeah, fine, guv’nor,” came the usual muffled refrain.

It had to have been sweltering for those guys inside those costumes. There were giant lights illuminating the soundstage, and no air-conditioning that I can recall. I had already soaked through Westley’s billowy black shirt, just because of the action under the bright lights, so I can only imagine how unbearable it must have been inside the skin of a 50-pound latex-and-fur-covered R.O.U.S. But there weren’t any complaints from the guys in the suits. I won’t lie to you, though: as I rolled around on the floor of the swamp, staring into the rubber face of a giant rat, I did find myself thinking, Gosh, I hope this all works out. I mean, the R.O.U.S. didn’t really look all that much like fearsome creatures to begin with. Up close, they looked like what they were: little people inside rat suits.

I could only hope that no one would care, that somehow the special effects would seem charming rather than cheesy (which was, thankfully, exactly the way it turned out).

The next day, our final day in the swamp, I arrived on the set to find what appeared to be a large commotion going on. Rob and Andy were
in a serious conference with the ADs and David Barron, our production manager. I approached to inquire what all the fuss was about.

“We lost one of the R.O.U.S.,” Rob said.

“What? What happened?” I asked, fearing the worst—maybe an accident or something.

“It’s the guy you are supposed to fight with today, Danny. We can’t find him.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, we can’t finish the sequence without him.”

“Can’t one of the other guys take his place?”

“No,” Andy chimed in, “he’s the only trained stuntman. He’s the only one qualified to fight with you. It’s a union thing.”

David Barron looked at his watch.

“If he’s not here in the next ten minutes,” he said to Rob, “we may have to break for lunch and try and complete this later on.”

“But this is our last day on this set. What if he doesn’t show?” Rob asked.

“Well, then, I suggest we figure out an alternative,” David responded.

After some more consultation with Rob, Andy, and the other ADs,
it was finally decided that we would have to make do with me wrestling a stuffed rat—the same one that was thrown at me from off camera by Peter Diamond after my line, “Rodents of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist.” Believe me when I tell you that wrestling a “rubber rat” felt even sillier than wrestling a little person inside a rat suit. Even Robin was barely able to stifle a laugh during some of the takes.

After shooting what seemed an endless amount of footage of this foolishness (that no one was buying—not even Rob, despite all his positive feedback) word came that Danny had finally arrived on set. We all stopped what we were doing to go and make sure he was all right. There was no question that he was looking a little bedraggled. Now, based on the costly delay, some directors might have sent him packing, or at least given him a good tongue lashing, but not Rob. Compassionate to the core, he reached instead for a logical response.

“How are you? Are you all right?” Rob asked him sincerely.

“I am now,” came the reply.

“What the heck happened to you? We were all worried!”

This opened the door for Danny to embark on an extraordinary tale that stopped production in its tracks for the next few minutes.

“Well, guv’nor, it’s like this, you see. I had a bit of a rough night . . . a really rough night, actually.”

Rob nodded sympathetically and leaned forward. They made quite a pair—Danny, at four feet tall, and Rob more than six feet, with his broad shoulders and thick beard.

Danny hung his head shamefully and went on.

“So I went out to the pub last night with my mates, right? And we tied a few ones on, same as usual. And anyway, when it was time to go home, I got in my special car, you see—”

“A special car?” Rob interjected.

“You know—a car that’s specially made for me. See, my feet can’t reach the floor of a regular car. I can’t use the pedals. So I’ve got a car that’s adjusted for me, so I can drive it with me hands.”

By now the whole crew had gathered around. Hanging on every word.

“Well, anyway, such is my luck, I got pulled over, didn’t I?”

Rob, of course, asked, “For what?”

“For speeding! Course I wasn’t speeding at all ’cos my car can only go so fast, you know.”

Rob shook his head out of concern, but some of the crew couldn’t help chuckling a little.

“But this copper, he’s got another idea. So he pulls me over, knocks on the window, and tells me to get out the vehicle. So I hop off me pile of books—’cos I use a stack of books to get the right height. And I jump out of the car, and I’m a bit wobbly, I won’t lie to you. So the policeman, he says to me, ‘License and registration.’ So I give it to him
and he says, ‘Do you realize what you were doing?’ And I says, ‘No, what was I doing?’ And he goes, ‘You were over the speed limit.’ Then he asks me what’s the deal with my car, and he wants to know who I am and all that, right? So just as I start to tell him, he cuts me off and says, ‘Hold on! Let me smell your breath!’ So I give him a quick whiff and he says, ‘You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?’ And I says, ‘Yeah, I’ve had a couple.’ And he says, ‘Right, then! Back of the van for you!’ ”

By this time most of the crew were trying hard not to laugh at this poor guy’s misfortune. But Rob remained calm and composed. I think he just wanted to hear the end of the story.

“Then what happened?” Rob asked, genuinely intrigued.

“So I try to tell him he’s making a big mistake,” Danny continued, becoming more animated as the tale went on. “I says, ‘You don’t understand! I can’t go down to the station! I’ve got an important day’s work today.’ And the cop says, ‘Work?’ Just like that—‘Work?’—like he don’t think I can earn a decent wage or something. ‘What do you do for a living?’ So I tells him, ‘I’m an actor!’ right? And he just laughs and says, ‘Yeah, right, pull the other one!’ And I says, ‘No, it’s true, officer! I’m an actor and a stuntman and I have to be on the set in a few hours.’ Then the cop asks me, ‘Okay, what part are you playing?’ And I says, ‘I’m playing a rat.’ And he goes, ‘All right, I’ve heard enough. Back of the van for you!’ He didn’t believe me, guv’nor. So I spent a few hours in the clink, didn’t I? Finally I was able to call someone in production to come bail me out.”

Far from angry, Rob threw an arm around Danny.

“Wow. I’m so sorry to hear that. We wouldn’t have known what to do without you. I’m glad you made it out. Cary was getting kinda tired of wrestling a dummy.”

The poor fellow seemed relieved.

“Thanks, guv’nor! It was quite an ordeal, I can tell you!”

“But you’re okay now, right? Or do you need some time?” Rob asked.

“No, guv. I’ve been locked up all night. I’m ready to go.”

And with that, there was a round of applause and a cheer from the crew. Within minutes Danny had transformed into a Rodent of Unusual Size, and helped us all find our way out of the Fire Swamp, once and for all.

6

A
fter being given the weekend off to recover from our long shoot in the Fire Swamp the whole crew packed up and traveled to our next location: Derbyshire’s famous Peak District, arriving on the first day of September. A good deal of the movie was to be filmed in and around this area, most notably at Haddon Hall, an ancient manor home located on the River Wye in Bakewell. I can attest that it’s almost impossible to visit Haddon Hall and not feel a sense of awe.

In America sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the world is an ancient place. The United States is, after all, but a few hundred years old, a veritable blip on the timepiece of Western civilization. In parts of Europe, though, there is no mistaking the history; it is palpable and overwhelming. Haddon Hall has a very rich history. The place cannot be measured in years or even decades, but in centuries. You
can feel the ghosts of medieval times; they practically whisper from the walls.

Parts of it date back to the late eleventh century, when the property belonged to a noble by the name of William Peverel the Elder, allegedly the illegitimate son of William the Conqueror, the great Norman king. It also has a wonderful romantic past, which made it a perfect setting for our tale. In the late sixteenth century, the property belonged to the Vernons, a powerful family closely associated with the infamous King Henry VIII. Sir George Vernon, known as the king of the Peak District, had a daughter by the name of Dorothy, who fell in love with a young local man named John Manners. Sir George, however, did not approve of the match between his daughter and the local fellow who was a nobleman (unlike our Buttercup and Westley) and tried to keep the lovers apart. According to lore, Dorothy’s lover would arrange to meet her in the nearby woods for secret trysts, disguised as a forester so that he wouldn’t attract attention. One night, in 1563, Manners spirited Dorothy away on his horse so that they could live happily ever after, much like the ending of our movie.