Warwick Davis
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 12 June 2016
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kirsty Young's castaway is the actor Warwick Davis.
His career began thanks to his grandmother who heard a radio advert calling for short people to be in the latest of George Lucas's Star Wars films. He played his first role as an Ewok in Star Wars when he was 11 years old and found himself on set with his childhood heroes. Since then he's worked on all the Harry Potter films, appeared in TV sitcoms, documentaries, horror movies, quiz shows and Christmas pantomimes.
Born with Spondyloepiphyseal Dysplasia Congenita (SED), a rare disorder of bone growth which results in dwarfism, the view of his doctors was that he'd be wheelchair bound and unlikely to live beyond his teens. Now in his mid-forties, he is married with two children of his own.
Producer: Sarah Taylor.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:06.0 | For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast. |
| 0:10.0 | For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk. |
| 0:17.0 | Radio 4. My customer is My cast away this week is the actor Warwick Davis, Hollywood Blockbusters, TV sitcoms, |
| 0:39.5 | documentaries, horror movies, quiz shows, Christmas Pantos, he's been at it since the tender age of 11. |
| 0:46.0 | Not just surviving an early start in showbiz, but using it to build a flourishing long-term career. Then again, bucking the odds is something of a habit. |
| 0:55.2 | Born with a very rare genetic disorder, the doctors thought he'd be wheelchair bound and die in his teens. |
| 1:00.8 | Well, I can happily confirm that my 46-year-old castaway walked into the studio today |
| 1:06.2 | apparently in robust health. He says, the reason I became a performer was because I was short, |
| 1:12.4 | and growing up I had to be larger than life had to be funnier |
| 1:15.1 | I had to be louder be bolder than everybody at school otherwise I'd get left out that was my apprenticeship |
| 1:21.7 | for being a performer. So welcome Warwick a performer do you think rather than an actor? |
| 1:27.0 | Yes, I guess I mean I do look at myself as being a performer because my career takes many different directions it's not only |
| 1:35.6 | acting it's being a presenter an author public speaker I do all sorts of things so |
| 1:41.5 | yeah performance I guess is the umbrella term I like to use I mentioned |
| 1:45.0 | Blockbusters there in the introduction much of your film career it strikes me has been in |
| 1:50.0 | elaborate costume I'm thinking of Star Wars of course or you know you've been in heavy |
| 1:54.3 | disguise in Harry Potter movies those parts take a long time in the makeup chair |
| 1:59.2 | how are you with that sort of stuff you restless for those four hours before you get on |
| 2:02.4 | set normally those four hours before you get on set? |
| 2:02.9 | Normally those four hours started about four o'clock in the morning, so I'm not particularly |
| 2:08.2 | awake at that time. |
... |
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