The new Willow series premiered on Disney+ this week, and it features some of the original film’s cast as well as fun nods to the 1988 fantasy classic. One notable callback is the use of “blackroot,” a plant that Madmartigen (Val Kilmer) attempts to feed to the baby, Elora Danan. This upsets Willow (Warwick Davis) who says babies shouldn’t eat the blackroot, especially considering Madmartigen described it as something that “put’s hair on your chest.” Many of the show’s cast members as well as showrunner Jonathan Kasdan recently had a chat with ComicBook.com‘s Chris Killian who asked the actors what black root tastes like and if it really puts hair on your chest.
“God yes, have you seen my chest? You’ve seen my chest on the show,” Amar Chadha-Patel (Boorman) joked. “We had to take some of that off.” He added, “It tasted like licorice.” Tony Revolori (Graydon) shared, “I can’t remember what they actually used, but I think it was a eucalyptus branch. And yeah, it does put hair on your chest,” he added pretending to choke. “‘Can I get some water, please?’ Did you ever try the blackroot,” he asked Ellie Bamber (Elora Danan). “I didn’t try it, no,” she replied. While Bamber didn’t get the chance to taste the blackroot, Kasdan explained why the actor stepping into the movie role was the perfect choice to play a character who was fed blackroot as a baby.
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“We wanted a blackroot moment. I now want to go further into blackroot,” Kasdan shared. “I feel like Elora could potentially have a blackroot cookbook where she just makes… the funny thing is that Ellie, the irony of all of this, and I don’t know if you’ve gotten to talk to Ellie yet, but she loves spicy food. Like, not just… that’s an understatement. She’s someone that can eat things that the rest of us would like, have to go to the hospital, and she does it without blinking an eye. So it’s interesting that she’s playing the baby who was fed blackroot in the movie. She was sort of born to it.” He joked, “Which is why we cast her.”
Would you try blackroot if given the chance? Tell us in the comments!
The first two episodes of Willow are now streaming on Disney+.
