Click 'Full Story' to check out our exclusive interview with Warwick Davis, where we discuss Return of the Jedi, Star Wars events, Harry Potter, the Chronicles of Narnia and Celebrity Scissorhands. Yes, you read that last one right - read on for all that and more!

Warwick Davis launched his career in the role that Star Wars fans recognise him for, Wicket the Ewok in Return of the Jedi, which he reprised for the two Ewok spin-off movies. Since then he has had a busy and varied career, including roles in the Harry Potter series, The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the next film in The Chronicles of Narnia series. Despite this success he makes regular appearances to meet his fans, and we caught up with Warwick at the CelebFest Star Wars event in Sheffield.

How did you enjoy your role hosting the Celebrity Stage at Celebration Europe?

Well, Celebration Europe was my third hosting role at a Star Wars event.

The first one I did was at Celebration III in Indianapolis, and that went really well. It was sort of ‘thrown in at the deep end’. When you’re given these assignments, when I was given Celebration III in Indianpolis, they said would you like to be one of the MCs [Master of Ceremonies] for it, and I said, “oh, great”. I thought they would hand me all the questions, and I’d basically just sit there and go “hi, right”. But no, they said we’ll let you know who the guests are, and that’s it. So I’ve got this list of actors’ names, and  I’ve got to find out about them, and I’ve got to create a show about this person. [As] it happened, it came quite easily to me.

Then Disney asked me to host Star Wars Weekends, which was really great. And again I was doing a very similar thing in creating the content, and I couldn’t believe the amount of creative input I had. Disney being Disney, I thought they’d say “this is how it is.” But I would just say, for this show I need such and such a thing, or I need this, or I need a Yoda mask, and they’d get me one. And it was brilliant working with them, because they would just let me have fun, and we did have such a good laugh. Loads of that stuff’s on YouTube now, loads of those shows are on YouTube.

Then Celebration Europe came along and they asked me to be the host of the event again. Each time I do it I push it that bit further, and to say I was exhausted after it would be an understatement. It was a huge amount of work, because myself and my director, Oliver Moore, we were just given the stage and a list of names, and that was it. I thought, this is a huge event, we’ve got to make this a great show. So we did other things. Each time I do a bit more, and we went out onto the streets of Peterborough, which is my local city. We just started shooting doc spots with people, because I was interested to explore how far reaching Star Wars is within culture now. You know, does everyone know Star Wars? Has everyone seen it? You kind of assume everyone has. So I’d walk up to somebody in the street and just say, “what can you tell me about Darth Vader?” It was amazing how many people didn’t know stuff about Star Wars! Nobody knew who Boba Fett was, whereas us fans would think, we all know who Boba Fett is. Nobody who was not an obsessive, nobody knew who Boba Fett was. We got some brilliant reactions, and they were little pieces I would play during the shows.

I have a laugh doing it. I’ve been asked to do Disney again next year, I’m hosting that again and would love to do the next Celebration wherever it may be and whenever it may be. You know, there’s talk of Celebrations in other parts of the world as well now, so it would be a lot of fun to do it.

 I know I was just very intensively working that show, so for me it was fun doing it but the event wasn’t an enoyable thing, it was a stress thing. Afterwards when I’d finished, I was like, “great, that went well, that’s job done.”

So not as relaxing as an event like this.

No, I mean I look at all the other actors when they’re at Celebration when I had five minutes, and they’re all just signing. That’s the way to do it.

I mean, we just had some great interviews. One of the more memorable ones was Robert Watts, when we had him on stage. I interviewed him three times during the course of Celebration Europe, first was for the 30th Anniversary panel, second was for the Indiana Jones panel, and the third time was on his own as a producer, and just the stories... That was a full show, it was a full 2,000 people in there just hanging on every word. He was a really interesting guest, and I really did enjoy talking to him.

And during Celebration Europe we saw several snippets of the legendary Revenge of the Ewok, was that typical of the kind of fun you had filming Return of the Jedi?

Yeah, Return of the Jedi I was eleven, so it was such an amazing thing for an eleven year old to be part of. I suppose I was not so much working, but I was there playing an adventure game, that was what it was like for me. Nowadays kids sit and play with Battlefront and they kind of immerse themselves in the world of Star Wars through their games console. But I was able to do it for real, I was able to be there and experience it. Fight with Stormtroopers for real, and for a child that’s an amazing thing. So, great memory there, just good times all the time.

I’d never flown on a plane before, and I was asked to go to America to carry on the filming. Although I did a month in England, for a lot of Ewoks that was it. But I was chosen, one of I think six, to go from England to America. The idea of that was to give some continuity to the tribe of Ewoks, so that you would recognise characters from the village also in the forest. It would bring the two groups together, so they weren’t totally seperate. So [I was] lucky I got to travel, and go on a plane, it was such a big adventure for me.

And now, here we are today, 25 years on from Return of the Jedi, 30 years on from Star Wars, and I still can’t believe the impact that character and that film’s having. People say “I love Wicket, I grew up with the character”, and there’s not many films in my career I can say that about. I mean, who knows, in 30 years time will we still be talking about Harry Potter? Or will it have been forgotten? You can’t tell, we will have to wait and see on that.

But Star Wars, think of it, the length of time. Looking around the room, you’ve got very young children who are also loving Star Wars now, and they’re a generation to carry it on. You’ve got the Star Wars TV series to look forward to, so Lucasfilm are very keen to point out that it’s not over til it’s over. There’s probably more Star Wars in front of us than there is behind us.

Plenty more to look forward to.

Starting your career with an epic film like Return of the Jedi, and recently filming epic films such as The Phantom Menace, Harry Potter, Narnia, what differences stand out to you when filming?

Well as I’ve progressed through my career, the differences are the technology of filmmaking has altered so much.

Let’s just take an example from Return of the Jedi to Episode I.  For me that was a totally different experience, because at least with Jedi we were placed in the Ewok village, which literally was 20 feet off the ground. Although the trees were made of polystyrene, it was as real as you could get to being in an Ewok village. 

Step on the set of Phantom Menace, there wasn’t particularly much of a set, if any. I remember one particular sequence I did, was I had to go and take the reigns of one of the creatures, they’re towing the pods out onto the grid. They were like a dinosaur type creature, called an Eopie. I had to grab the reigns of one of these things, turn it round in a circle and then lead it off. For that shot I was the only thing, real thing, in the shot. The rest of it was just bluescreen. I didn’t see the reigns, I didn’t see the creature, and I didn’t see the environment. So George said, “Ok, walk in there, grab the reigns and lead it round.” I was like, “well what?” He said, “well just imagine it.” I got a round of applause after it, because literally, you weren’t seeing anything, but to look at the shot, you thought you were seeing me grabbing, and physically pulling the creature. Then obviously when we see the film it’s all there, it’s all happening. You can see that shot in the back of the hangar, when Watto and Qui-Gon are talking. You see me in the background getting this creature.

So that’s the difference, not much set there, more to your imagination. But then filming on Harry Potter, although big budget, blockbuster of a movie, they’re building the full sets. Stuff is there. You know, the Great Hall is there, it exists as a place. The only thing that isn’t there is the Enchanted Ceiling. Otherwise, it looks totally as it is on the movie. Even on the first one, they don’t do it now, they had three hundred floating candles that were actually there. But one dropped off one day, and they took them all down, and now they’re replaced by CG versions of candles. There is that reality there, certainly as an actor you sit on the set and you can feel much more the character, and much more like you’re there. Because it’s taking less imagination, so you can then focus on the performance. I’m here, I’m in Hogwart’s, I’m sat at the main table, I am eating roast turkey, it’s all there. It’s a bit easier, working in that environment.

Your career has been predominantly fantasy films, however recently you’ve done some comedy. Which genre do you enjoy more?

I’d love to do more comedy stuff, comedy’s where I want to go. Inparticular, [I’ve] just worked on a trailer for a film.

Shortfellas.

Yeah. Which is unusual because normally, you have a trailer after the fact rather than before. The reason we did it is because the film is half financed, and the script is so brilliant, and the role would be so fun for me and for the four other short actors in it, and I just think the audience is going to love it.  I wanted to see this through, and they said “well, we’re gonna make a trailer,” which will then persuade the other financers. They’re interested, but they want to see something.

So last weekend I spent in Newcastle running around robbing Post Offices, it’s brilliant. I said to one of my fellow cast members, when we were kids we used to play robbers and cops and what have you, and now we’re doing it for a living. Stockings on the head, “freeze!”, and all that. It was brilliant. So I had a great time. So fingers crossed, that will be online in November, the trailer. It’ll also have been sent out to investors, and [I] hope to be shooting next March.

So is there a projected release date for that?

It’ll be later next year, they’ll get it out as soon as they can. The people who have already put money in want it to be shot this year. But I think it’s going to be too tight, with my scheduling, and other people, and getting the pre-production done. So that’s an exciting thing and it’s a fun film. It’s not all-out comedy but it’s funny circumstance.

And then I understand you’ve shot for the next Narnia film, Prince Caspian. How is it to re-visit that, after being part of the BBC adaptation?

Well, it’s weird, yeah. I’m very familiar with Narnia, and the world through the wardrobe. It’s funny for me actually being on set and playing scenes opposite Reepicheep, who I played in the BBC series. Reepicheep is created very differently in this film, to my portrayal of the character.

I play Nikabrik in the film, and it comes out next May 16th. I can’t really tell you a lot about it, because I’m on that ‘hush-hush’ time at the minute with it. But we filmed New Zealand, and also Czech Republic, Poland, and it’s gonna be great. I loved working on it, and I’m excited to see it.

With all of those locations, was there still a lot of bluescreen involved?

I only shot a couple of shots on bluescreen. So primarily we found all the places, and some of the wonderful locations we found were almost too amazing to be real. People are gonna watch them and think, that’s CG, but these were real natural places that they discovered. New Zealand has a lot to offer with that. We went to some of the locations that I filmed on Willow.

I take it that was a nostalgic experience for yourself, then.

Definitely. I actually found one of the exact spots where we shot a scene and had a photo taken. Which I’ve got to put on my website [www.warwickdavis.com]. I stood in the same spot. It looked a little bit different, bit of erosion occurred, because [it was] 20 years ago, but it was the same place. So it was nostalgic for me, yeah.

And are there any other upcoming projects that you can share with us?

I shall be one of the academy members, one of the apprentices, for Celebrity Scissorhands, so I have to learn to be a hairstylist and a beauty therapist. That starts in two weeks, BBC3 and BBC1. It’s to encourage people to get involved with Children in Need. Doing that in a couple of weeks.

I’m in panto in Wimbledon, with Ross Kemp and Bobby Davro. That’s coming up in December. Next February I’m in Harry Potter, and then hopefully Shortfellas will be shortly after that.

Then Star Wars Weekends for a month. And I would say to any Star Wars fan, if you’re going to take a holiday next year, that’s the place to go. They just do such a good job of it, Disney do, it’s really great. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, all through late May into June, they do either four or five weekends. It’s really great, we have a good time. There’s some lovely exclusive merchandise and stuff, they do some nice pieces. A lot of Mickey Mouse crossover stuff. I’ve got a really nice stuffed toy, my son’s actually got it. It’s a Goofy but he’s dressed as Darth Vader, which is really smart.

Interview conducted on Sunday 14th October, 2007 exclusively for Jedi News.