The new Willow series premiered on Disney+ today, and it features some iconic actors from the original film, including Warwick Davis playing the titular role. ComicBook.com attended the show’s premiere in Los Angeles last night and spoke to some of the show’s cast and crew. In addition to getting to chat with some of the original stars, we also talked with some of the newest cast members who teased their characters and talked about working on the fantasy series. ย
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We spoke with Adwoa Aboah (Scorpia), Dempsey Bryk (Airk Tanthalos), Tony Revolori (Graydon Hastur), and Amar Chadha-Patel (Boorman) about their new roles in Willow. Aboah and Bryk talked about the intense training that went into making the show while Revolori revealed whether or not he’s really playing the flute onscreen, and Chadha-Patel discussed developing his character.ย
How Did Adwoa Aboah Feel About Joining Willow?
“I mean, challenging. I don’t know if you’ve seen the fight scenes and everything like that. I’m so new to this,” Aboah shared. “This is my second big thing, and it’s like you’re on location. We’re in the middle of Wales. The cast had been filming for a lot longer than I had, and I was stepping into something that I’d been filming already. They’d done stunt training, all sorts of things, and I think, I definitely, to a certain extent, felt a little bit out of my element. But everyone was so welcoming … It was definitely challenging. Someone asked me the other day what I could take away from this experience, and I think how lucky really to have been able to be part of something that is so challenging. Some people spend their whole life doing the same thing and that’s completely fine, but I feel like I was really thrown in the deep end and I really love that. I came out the other end, and I’m here today.”
Did Tony Revolori Learn To Play the Flute?ย
“So yes and no,” Revolori said when asked if he learned to play the flute forย Willow. “So I did, and then they told me that the flute was nonfunctional, so I couldn’t learn to, I was like, even though I kind of started taking lessons, they were like, ‘Oh, the flute’s not actually, you can’t, it’s not functional.’ I was like, ‘Well then what was the point?’ So I kept whistling during all those moments because I could still whistle all the things on my lips … And I would just hum or whistle like ‘Indiana Jones,’ ‘Imperial March,’ and everyone would be laughing and cracking up and then the producers were like, ‘Something we can use’ … ‘I’m like … Lucasfilm owns all of it. What do you mean you can’t use it?’ He joked, “Would’ve been a great easter egg.”ย
What Classic Film Character Inspired Amar Chadha-Patel’s Boorman?
“We knew going in, he was going to be this archetype of the guy with the sword and make jokes and he was funny and loud,” Chadha-Patel said of his character. “But the whole point of him was to deconstruct that archetype and make him a little bit more fragile.” He added, “And Jon [Kasdan] and I spent a lot of time trying to make him physical and that Toshiro Mifune is a Japanese actor in Seven Samurai. He’s a really big influence because he’s just like a caged tiger. So there was a lot of physical work that went into making him funny but also stoic. It was a really interesting process.” ย
Did Dempsey Bryk Do His Own Stunts?
“That was a dream come true,” Bryk said of his sword training. “I mean I’ve always wanted to do my own stunts ever since I’ve been… you know… I don’t know when Tom Cruise started flying his own airplanes, but I feel like I was quite young. Or you know, Jackie Chan also… Growing up watching Jackie Chan. It was always a dream of mine to do my own stunts and I got on to set here and we had the best stunt team in the world. Neil Chapelhow was… Well C.C. Smith was the head stunt coordinator and then Neil Chapelhow was my stunt double and trainer, and every day I’d go in whenever I had free time, and they would be there just to train me and we would do crazy moves. I can’t even… that was something that I would pay for and the fact that I was being paid to do it just felt like I was ripping someone off. I felt like I was doing something illegal.”ย
The first two episodes of Willow are now streaming on Disney+.ย
