Trivia / The Princess Bride

• Actor-Shared Background: Christopher Guest, who plays Count Rugen, is a real-life nobleman of British ancestry.
• All-Star Cast:
  • While lacking in huge movie stars, the film still has a large number number of well-known and respected performers, featuring Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Peter Falk, Fred Savage, André the Giant, Christopher Guest, Wallace Shawn, Billy Crystal, Carol Kane, and Peter Cook.
  • The "Sweden" edition released online in 2020, Home Movie: The Princess Bride, which boasts some of the original actors joined by the likes of Adam Sandler, Chris Pine, Jason Segel, Dave Bautista, Diego Luna, Hugh Jackman, Nick Kroll, Patton Oswalt...
• Completely Different Title: The film is named Prinsessen og de Skøre Riddere ("The Princess and the Crazy Knights") in Denmark, as a homage to Monty Python and the Holy Grail which is named Monty Python og de Skøre Riddere in Denmark.
  • Germany: The Prince's Bride
  • Canada: Once Upon a Time... Princess Buttercup
  • Colombia: The Abduction of the Princess
  • Greece: Crazy Love and Fantasy Stories
  • Italy: The Fantastic Story
  • Sweden: A Minute of Pale Death
  • Venezuela: The Pirate and the Princess
• Corpsing:
  • The Miracle Max scene. Billy Crystal being given free rein had the cast and crew in stitches the whole time the scene was being shot. Cary Elwes had it particularly bad, as he was supposed to be Only Mostly Dead throughout the scene while Crystal was cutting up left and right, and he couldn't contain himself. The crew finally gave up, and much of the time you see Westley on the table, it's actually a dummy wearing the Dread Pirate Roberts costume. Mandy Patinkin, for all his swashbuckling scenes as Inigo, suffered only one injury on the set: he bruised his ribs from trying to contain his laughter from Billy Crystal's antics. Rob Reiner had to direct from afar. He was having so much trouble containing himself, his laughter was ruining take after take.
  • According to Cary Elwes' book on the making of the movie, in the first take of the scene where Westley, Inigo, and Fezzik are perched on the wall of Humperdinck's castle, Andre let out a truly titanic fart, so huge the sound man had to take his headphones off, and the entire cast and crew burst out laughing. Several subsequent takes were ruined by Cary and/or Mandy getting the giggles (because Andre kept smiling about it and commenting how he felt much better) and shooting had to pause for everybody to regain their composure.
• Creator-Chosen Casting:
  • Rob Reiner cast Cary Elwes based on his performance in Lady Jane, However, during the casting period in Los Angeles, Elwes was in Germany on set for Maschenka. Reiner flew out to Berlin to meet with Elwes, confirming his appropriateness for the role. While Reiner and casting director Jane Jenkins auditioned other actors for Westley, they knew Elwes was perfect for the part.
  • When the casting director asked William Goldman how big a giant Fezzik should be, he replied "about the size of André the Giant". Guess who ended up playing Fezzik in the film!
    • This was practically a case of Real Life Writes the Plot; Goldman has revealed that André was the original inspiration for Fezzik in the novel (the author was a huge wrestling fan).
• Creator's Favorite:
  • Mandy Patinkin has said that the role of Inigo Montoya is his personal favorite over the course of his entire career.
  • When the behind-the-scenes interviewers asked Andre what he liked most about working on the film, he simply responded, "Nobody sees me," and he was correct; everyone treated him as just another member of the cast. After the film came out, one of the stipulations Andre had for any hotel he was staying at was they had to have a copy of The Princess Bride for him to watch. He clearly enjoyed his work on the movie.
• Darkhorse Casting: According to casting directors Janet Hirshenson and Jane Jenkins, "a whole slew of actresses and models" were auditioned for the role of Buttercup. Robin Wright's only role of note when she was cast as Buttercup was that of Kelly Capwell in the daytime Soap Opera Santa Barbara.
• Deleted Scene: An alternate ending filmed, but never completed, depicts the grandson re-reading The Princess Bride by himself, then looking out the window to see Buttercup and her heroes riding through the sky on white horses.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Cary Elwes and Mandy Patinkin went through intense sword training in preparation for their on-screen duel, working until they could perform both halves of the sequence perfectly. They practiced right up until the very last minute, with Elwes having to do part of his training with a broken toe^note he'd injured it after having been goaded by Andre the Giant into trying out an ATV, and performed almost the entire sequence themselves, only being doubled (by the same stuntman, to boot) for the brief gymnastics routine.
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • André the Giant was having trouble with his lines. To get him to focus, Mandy Patinkin gave him a slap. Needless to say, the entire cast and crew had a joint Oh, Crap! moment (director Rob Reiner later described his reaction as, "Welp, we're gonna need a new Inigo") but it seemed Mandy knew what he was doing. André actually thanked him and was able to focus and get his lines right on the next take.
  • An unintentional example occurs when Count Rugen knocks Westley out with the butt of his sword; Christopher Guest accidentally hit Cary Elwes hard enough to knock him out for real.
  • Rugen looking flummoxed and fearful during his duel with Inigo stems partially from acting, but also from Mandy Patinkin having accidentally stabbed Christopher Guest in the leg with a sword during rehearsal, and Guest not wanting to get injured again. He promptly started taking fencing classes on his own and did away with most of his choreographed moves, instead just flailing his sword with defensive strikes instead.
  • An inadvertent example. Cary Elwes and Robin Wright quickly developed mutual crushes and this contributed to the amazing chemistry they share on screen. Both have expressed regret at missing the opportunity to act on those feelings.
  • A self-inflicted example. Wallace Shawn considered himself too minor an actor to play Vizzini, and felt that the original choice for the role, Danny DeVito, was closer to the novel's version. As filming progressed, he thought he bombed take after take, inadvertently creating the meme-worthy film Vizzini. Notably, the early scenes with Vizzini show him in a far more menacing light before he reaches the metaphorical and literal CLIFFS OF INSANITY!
• Fake Brit: Well, technically the story takes place in the fictional kingdom of Florin, but American actors Robin Wright (Buttercup) and Chris Sarandon (Prince Humperdinck) put on English accents anyway.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Mandy Patinkin is an Ashkenazi Jewish American playing a Spaniard. It would be different if he had some Sephardic ancestry.
  • Although never stated in the movie, in the book Fezzik is Turkish. André the Giant, who plays him, is actually French.
  • Nope, Wallace Shawn (Vizzini) is not Sicilian. Inconceivable, isn't it? Obviously, "Never go in against a Jewish-American posing as a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line!" would be too much to say.
• Harpo Does Something Funny: Billy Crystal was basically told by Rob Reiner to do whatever during the "mostly dead" scene. Crystal and Carol Kane, who played Valerie, also got together before filming to develop a backstory for their characters, and some of their interplay was invented on the spot.
• Holy Backlight: In real life. Author William Goldman was set to meet actress Robin Wright, who was under consideration for the role of Buttercup. When she arrived at Goldman's house, director Rob Reiner opened the front door to reveal Wright silhouetted in the doorway, wearing a white summer dress with her long golden hair backlit by the sun. Goldman took one look and said, "Well, that's what I wrote." She got the part.
• I Am Not Spock: Wallace Shawn is a long working character actor and playwright of film, theater, and television who will be forever haunted by the Fountain of Memes he created in this movie.
• Invisible Advertising: The film was produced independently by Norman Lear before Fox stepped in to help distribute it late in the game. Unfortunately, the marketing people didn't know what to make of the movie and it was released into theaters with zero promotion.
  Rob Reiner: They had faith but they didn't know how to market it. We had no trailer, no TV spots, no one-sheet!
• Irony as She Is Cast: Andre the Giant was famously a heel Wrestling Monster, but plays a complete sweetheart who actually has to be told to fight dirty and laments it's "not very sportsmanlike." Subverted as well, in that Andre's real-life personality, as opposed to his kayfabe Heel persona, was actually almost exactly the same as Fezzik's^note Robin Wright has a wonderful story about how she became cold during location shooting, and Andre merely put his (entire!) hand on her head, which warmed her up.
• Life Imitates Art:
  • With both sides regarding the work, in this case. As described under Girl-Show Ghetto, some of the later DVD covers play up the action and violence of the film, which mirrors the grandfather's pitch of the story to his grandson.
  • Count Rugen, anyone? Not too many fictional aristocrats-by-birth are played by aristocrats-by-birth.
  • During the climb up the Cliffs of Insanity in the original novel, Vizzini is described as having an intense fear of heights. So does Wallace Shawn, the actor who played Vizzini, which made filming the climb very difficult for him.
• Method Acting:
  • In 1972, Mandy Patinkin lost his father to pancreatic cancer (and long after the film ended, he was diagnosed with and successfully treated for prostate cancer). He channeled his grief into Inigo Montoya, who had also lost his father to a great evil.
    Mandy: And in my mind, I feel that when I "killed" that six-fingered man, I killed the cancer that killed my father. For a moment he was alive. And my fairy tale came true.
  • Also provided Enforced Method Acting for Christopher Guest as Count Rugen. Guest had come onto the film under the assumption that he'd only need to learn the sword fighting routines as needed, but Mandy Patinkin got so deep into character while shooting the climax that he actually stabbed Guest in the leg. For many of the shots, the fear on Count Rugen's face is Guest's genuine fear that Patinkin would, once again, get carried away and hurt him again. Guest also went and took fencing lessons on his own just in case he'd have to actually defend himself against Patinkin.
  • Billy Crystal and Carol Kane (who played Miracle Max and his wife Valerie, respectively) got together before traveling to England to shoot and developed a backstory for their characters. Rob Reiner was impressed by their dedication and allowed them to improvise some of their lines to reflect the work they'd done.
• No Dub for You: The film was released in Japan, but it didn't get an actual dub until 2019.
• No Stunt Double: Cary Elwes and Mandy Patinkin performed all of their own sword-fighting after many hours of training. According to Rob Reiner, the only stunt performed by Patinkin's stunt double was one flip during the "Chatty Duelists" scene.
• On-Set Injury:
  • Cary Elwes suffered two serious injuries during production.
    • He broke his toe after being goaded into trying out the ATV André the Giant rode to-and-from set and ended up being flung off. He continued working while injured, even spending hours each day training for the film's iconic dueling scene.
    • When Count Rugen hits Westley over the head, Elwes told Christopher Guest to go ahead and hit him for real. Guest hit him hard enough to shut down production for a day while Elwes went to the hospital.
  • Mandy Patinkin also suffered an injury on the set, but surprisingly, it wasn't from one of his fight scenes. During the sequence with Miracle Max, he was trying so hard not to corpse at Billy Crystal and Carol Kane's antics that he bruised a rib from holding in his laughter.
• Promoted Fanboy: Cary Elwes had read the book in his childhood and associated himself with the character of Westley, but never believed he would have the opportunity to play him.
• Referenced by...:
  • The Millennial King has a little border town on the divide between Florin and Guilder become a huge empire. Miracle Max is still out of work, and prince Humperdinck is still a douche. The King gets better, though.
  • The Darths & Droids party played a fantasy campaign between Episode 1 and Episode 2 based on Princess Bride. Pete played Vizzini, and was intensely honked off about how the DM bullshitted the poisoned drink bet scene, as well as by the other players paying to resurrect not Pete's character, but the NPC who killed him.
• Romance on the Set: Although they didn't pursue their feelings, Robin Wright and Cary Elwes were smitten with each other during filming, naturally helping their chemistry in the movie. Elwes said that he "couldn't concentrate on much of anything after that first encounter with Robin." In retrospectives, both have wondered wistfully about what might have been if they'd actually entered into a relationship.
• Self-Adaptation: William Goldman had experience writing for film, and so rewrote The Princess Bride himself, removing many of the (admittedly unfilmable) metatextual elements of his own accord and shifting the focus towards the fairy-tale parody angle, retaining the editor's notes about the story being read to him as a child as a different Framing Device.
• Star-Making Role: For Robin Wright and Cary Elwes.
• Stillborn Franchise: A sequel to the novel, entitled Buttercup's Baby, was teased by William Goldman for many years, with the first chapter (and a characteristically metafictional backstory) being included in the 30th Anniversary Edition of the novel, but the furthest he ever got after that was briefly admitting in an interview that he'd been having trouble coming up with ideas. Some have debated whether he was really serious about it, or if it was simply his latest addition to his ongoing prank on the reader about the supposed existence of Florin and S. Morgenstern, but either way, no sequel book was finished by the time Goldman died in 2018.
• Studio Hop: A long and complicated example. Norman Lear (after his company Embassy was bought by Columbia Pictures; the Embassy film library began to bounce between owners and eventually came to rest with the French production company StudioCanal) produced the film through his own company, Act III Communications, before 20th Century Fox picked up the distribution rights for theatrical and on TV. Video rights were a different story. At first, video releases (all of which cut the Fox logo) came from Nelson Entertainment, the former Embassy Home Entertainment that began to co-produce films with Reiner's Castle Rock Entertainment not long after; Nelson was eventually bought by New Line Cinema, who turned it into New Line Home Video and reprinted the VHS version. By the late 1990s, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had gotten the video rights as part of a large package of movies that had been owned by PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, and have retained the video rights since then. On the Disney+ streaming print (also used by Hulu), the 1980s Fox logo is retained, as streaming rights apparently belong to them (though it should be noted MGM's original 1998 VHS release kept the Fox logo; their subsequent DVD releases replaced it with the MGM lion).
• Throw It In!: In his memoir As You Wish, Cary Elwes revealed that when Humperdink's men are taking him to the Pit of Despair, Christopher Guest wasn't actually hitting him with the butt of his sword, and because Cary couldn't feel an impact, he kept blowing the timing and needing more takes. Finally, he told Guest to just "tap" him on the head once...and the next thing he knew, he's at the local hospital being stitched up. His getting knocked out is the take used in the film.
• Vindicated by Cable: The film bombed largely due to poor marketing, but strong performance on VHS (later DVD) and cable helped cement it in popular culture. This phenomenon was detailed in Cary Elwes' As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Christopher Reeve was considered for the role of Westley before the casting of Cary Elwes; producer Andrew Scheinman claims that Colin Firth was also considered;
  • Carrie Fisher was the initial candidate for the part of Buttercup before Robin Wright was cast. Courteney Cox, Meg Ryan, Uma Thurman, Sean Young, Suzy Amis, Alexandra Paul and Whoopi Goldberg also auditioned for Buttercup before the casting of Wright. Thurman was turned down due to the fact that she was considered "too exotic" for the character.
  • When Goldman originally shopped his novel in the early 1970s, William Goldman's second choice for Fezzik, after André the Giant, was Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was doing bodybuilding at the time. When the film was finally green-lit, Schwarznegger was already a well-established actor and thus, too pricey for the studio. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lou Ferrigno, Richard Kiel, Liam Neeson, and Carel Struycken read for the role of Fezzik before the casting of André the Giant. Neeson was declined due to the fact that Rob Reiner considered him "too short" for the part, despite Neeson being 6'4".
  • Danny DeVito was the first choice for the role of Vizzini before Wallace Shawn was cast.
  • A charity script reading by the surviving cast in 2020 used a slightly earlier script, revealing some alterations in the final version. Perhaps most notably, Fezzik was going to keep cracking rhyming jokes at the Cliffs of Insanity, which was likely removed because it would wreck the tension.

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