Billy Crystal Caused a Very Wholesome Injury on Set for the Cast and Crew of ‘The Princess Bride'
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Despite Billy Crystal being almost two feet shorter than his The Princess Bride co-star and professional wrestler Andre the Giant, it was the modestly-sized comedian who caused the most harm on the set of the adventure-fantasy film. For those who worked on the Rob Reiner-directed classic, the injury was the best kind of hurt they could ask for.
Crystal, who worked with Reiner on the 1987 film, alongside When Harry Met Sally (1989), and This is Spinal Tap (1984), paid tribute to the late film director and his wife, Michele Reiner, in a joint statement which included fellow comedic talents Martin Short, Larry David, and Albert Brooks.
“[Reiner]'s comedic touch was beyond compare, his love of getting the music of the dialogue just right, and his sharpening of the edge of a drama was simply elegant. For the actors, he loved them. For the writers, he made them better," the statement read.
Crystal's co-star Mandy Patinkin expressed similar sentiment in his own tribute to the director, highlighting Reiner's ability to bring out the best in his actors.
"When we were filming the scene in The Princess Bride, where Inigo kills the six fingered man and says: 'I want my father back, you son of a b*tch,' take after take after take, Rob kept asking me to do less do less do less," Patinkin recalled in a statement following his passing. "In my sleepless night, I realized he wanted less anger from me to allow my broken heart to be felt."
Earlier this year, Patinkin talked to The New York Post about his positive experiences making the film, and that he will still "pinch [him]self" when fans recite his iconic lines to him on a near-daily basis, and that even now, the actor "can’t get over that I got to be that guy in that movie. How does that happen? I don’t know how it happens!”
It Hurt the ‘Princess Bride’ Crew To Sustain Their Laughter at Billy Crystal’s Performance—Literally
When asked if he knew the film would be a hit with audiences, Patinkin responded that he did. "I knew it was fun," the 73-year-old recalled.
The film was so fun, in fact, that it started hurting the actor physically. “The only injury I got was when Billy Crystal was doing 13th-century period jokes, ten hours a day for three days straight,” he told the Post, referring to the scene where his character Inigo Montoya and Fezzick (Andre the Giant) brought Westley (Cary Elwes) to see Miracle Max (Crystal) in an effort to revive him.
“I bruised a rib holding in my laughter,” he recalled. “I had to be off camera holding a straight face because [Billy] couldn’t see, because he had cataract contacts.”
It wasn't just Patinkin that struggled to suppress their laughter - the sound department had to banish uncontrollable gigglers from the set so they could carry on with filming. This even included director Rob Reiner, who, according to Elwes, had to leave the set because his stomach hurt so hard from laughter that he would've thrown up.
"Rob, the director, he has a laugh that can be heard in Detroit, so they banished him off set, then the next person to go was me."
Elwes also said that Reiner permitted him to "forget the lines," and begin doing what the actor described as "three hours of medieval, Yiddish stand-up," resulting in a simple revival scene becoming one of the most expensive to shoot in the entire film, totalling ten hours of filming to complete.