As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride (22 page)

So naturally, when Robin and I arrived in Sheffield and heard that the folks from the Midlands had a very distinct vernacular, we would find ourselves trying to finesse the sound. As we were both Python and
Fawlty Towers
fans, we would watch their movies and shows on VHS whenever we had some downtime in our trailers. And it was during that time that I also turned Robin on to my favorite Python, Michael Palin, and one of his shows, called
Ripping Yarns
. In return she and Andy introduced me to
SCTV,
which I had never seen. Andy arranged for his office to have the whole series recorded, transferred from NTSC to PAL (the local format) and shipped to us on VHS on location.

Sheffield is also, incidentally, the birthplace of Palin. I am such a fan of his that when Rob asked me for suggestions of English comic actors to play the Impressive Clergyman, Palin was my first suggestion. It turned out that even though he loved the script, he sadly had to decline, as he was just about to play a character afflicted with one of the most notorious speech impediments ever put on film: Ken Pile in
A Fish Called Wanda.

Rob then mentioned that Peter Cook had also been suggested for the role and asked me about him, as he was not familiar with his work. I told him we should get Peter right away before he changed his mind,
as he was part of one of the most celebrated British comic duos when he partnered with Dudley Moore in the sixties. We were lucky to get Peter, as he was flawless in the role of the Clergyman with the flawed accent.

Looking back I think Robin’s performance in
The Princess Bride
is vastly underrated. Her role was to play the victim—the titular Princess Bride—a young woman who goes through a lot of trauma, having lost her true love, but who has to essentially look beautiful in the process. Here is another description of her from the book:

Buttercup doesn’t care much about clothes and she hates brushing her long hair, so she isn’t as attractive as she might be; but she’s still probably the most beautiful woman in the world.

That was Robin’s job: to look like a woman who would inspire a young farmhand to leave home and set off in search of wealth and security so that he might one day be worthy of her hand in marriage.

Sounds easy enough, right? Most people think if you’re blessed with the right bone structure, or if you just let the makeup and lighting crew do their work, all you have to do is bat your eyes at the camera and your job is done with a role like that.

Not quite.

Buttercup falls in love, loses her love, gets kidnapped, is forced into an arranged marriage, reconnects with her one true love, and then lets him go in order to save his life. It really requires a great deal of emotional range. What it doesn’t require—or at least doesn’t display—is the comedic talent for which
The Princess Bride
is so well known. Goldman wrote a screenplay that we now know is filled with great, classic funny lines. Unfortunately, few, if any, of those lines are given to Buttercup. Robin is not merely the victim in the film; she is also the straight man (or, in this case, the straight woman). And even though Westley is not
exactly a comedian, he does have some funny lines, and is involved in some rather broad physical comedy. Robin’s character is permitted no such relief. From start to finish, she had to play it straight, exactly as the role demanded.

That kind of professionalism, I’ve since discovered, is more apt to be found in actors who have honed their craft on the stage or in television, as opposed to movies. This is especially true of daytime television. I remember one time when Robin and I were looking at the call sheet together after a day’s shoot, and I couldn’t believe the sheer volume of work we faced in the morning and the pages of dialogue we would have to learn. And Robin just shrugged.

To her it was no big deal. On
Santa Barbara
she had to routinely bite off vast chunks of dialogue with virtually no time to memorize or rehearse.

In fact, we were all kind of blown away by her steadfastness and professionalism; how she never dropped her character or her accent while the camera was rolling. Since her role is neither flashy nor funny, her performance is sometimes underappreciated, which is a shame, because it’s actually pitch-perfect. She never once overacted or reached for something that wasn’t there. All of the action revolves around her character, and it was her job to capture that sense of innocence and helplessness—and she did it beautifully. Some actors frequently stumble through scenes and sometimes require a couple of takes to get it right. Not Robin. As I recall, she nailed just about every scene on the first take. She was flawless. The perfect choice to play Buttercup.

I fell in love with Robin from the moment we met—as indeed did nearly everyone who either met her, or got to know her. She is a remarkable woman and a great talent to work with. All I recall is that we had a really fun time working together on the film. With myself as a pirate. And she as a fair maiden. Running off together in the spirit of love and adventure. I mean honestly, how much more fun can you have than that? I like to think that chemistry between us translated onto the screen. I have already told you how much fun she is just to hang with. But she also brings that same sense of fun and joy to the set and can light up any room with her smile. She is so genuinely relaxed and comfortable in
her own skin and also very focused at the same time. Getting to play her knight in shining armor on-screen also made me feel very protective of her off-screen—not that Robin couldn’t handle herself in any situation.

In fact, I think it’s safe to say that everyone felt protective of Robin. I know there is a famous story (that has now actually been made into a cartoon!) where Robin was really beginning to feel the cold chill on the Derbyshire moors while shooting her kidnapped scenes with Mandy, André, and Wally. And she began to get the shivers. And once you get the shivers, it’s very hard to stop your teeth from chattering. So André, sweetheart of a man that he was, devised a technique to keep her warm that was very simple, really. He would use one of his hands as a hat on top of Robin’s head. She said it was like having a giant hot water bottle up there. It certainly did the trick; he didn’t even mess up her hair that much!

*  *  *

In the years since we made the movie, the industry has acknowledged what those of us who knew her back then already realized: that she is an extraordinary actor. And she seems to only be getting better with time—something that can be said about very few actors. As I write this now, she is just a few weeks removed from her triumph at the Golden Globes, where she received the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role for her remarkable work as the devious and scheming Claire Underwood on the Netflix series
House of Cards
. In every role, she
gives something of herself that’s unique. She never holds back and has that rare ability to tap into something deeply profound within herself that is appropriate for the character. She is a very observant and intelligent woman. That is why she is a marvel to watch. And I am proud to call her a friend.

9

O
ne of the great things about working on
The Princess Bride
was having an opportunity to perform alongside some of the smartest and most gifted comedic talents in the business. Just about everyone in the film had a chance to show off their comic chops, but I think two performances in particular are generally regarded as among the “funniest” in the movie.

The first is that of Wallace Shawn in the role of the Sicilian, Vizzini.

I knew Wally from
My Dinner with Andre,
directed by the great Louis Malle, in which he was both the costar and the screenwriter. The film contains some of my favorite lines, many of which are perhaps very revealing and personal from Wally’s standpoint; for example, when he says:

That’s what scares us. That moment of being face-to-face with another person. I mean, you wouldn’t think it would be so frightening.

Wally, I should point out, is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. The kind of mild-mannered, amiable, polite guy who still uses words like
gosh
and
gee
as part of his speech. And he truly does have a “dizzying intellect,” having graduated with a BA in history from Harvard and studied economics and philosophy at Oxford. Which is hardly surprising, since both his parents were journalists for
The New Yorker
—his father eventually becoming the editor of that magazine for thirty-five years and a very close friend of J. D. Salinger. After college Wally had originally intended to become a diplomat, but instead opted to travel to India as an English teacher on a Fulbright scholarship.

While we were shooting at Shepperton, he and his longtime partner, Deborah Eisenberg—another brilliant writer, actor, and professor—invited Rob, Andy, and the whole cast over to the apartment they had rented near Sloane Square in London for drinks one evening. I recall being impressed by the remarkable library in the study and Wally telling me that it was one of the main reasons he picked the place. He also told me that during his time off he was going to give a lecture at Oxford on English and American literature, something that prominent universities around the world, not surprisingly, paid him handsomely to do.

Still, none of Wally’s “dizzying intellect” as a writer, philosopher, or literature professor could dispel his insecurities as an actor. And even though I obviously do not possess anything close to his level of intelligence it was something I could easily relate to myself. I may be no dolt,
but in a real “battle of wits,” I am hardly a worthy match for Wallace Shawn. Frankly, I don’t think many people are.