One of the joys and surprises of this year's Movie-Con was the appearance of Westley himself, Cary Elwes. After tethering his charger to the South Bank (we'd like to think), he stopped by the National Film Theatre to introduce footage of Saw 3D. Which was equally joyous, especially if you ignored the bit with the eviseration.
The ever-debonair Elwes owned up to being a colossal Tintin fan ("I’ve got all the books at home – they’re pretty dishevelled – and when my daughter’s a bit older I’m going to read them to her"). He'll be appearing as a pilot in Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn and shared his brilliantly unorthodox approach to scoring the part.
“It’s a funny story if you’ve got a second. Steven Spielberg came down to the set of **A Christmas Carol **because he’s friends with Robert Zemeckis and was there while I was filming a scene - no pressure! He came over afterwards and said, 'I’m shooting Tintin. It’s got Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis and it’s going to be a lot of fun.' And I said, '[Stutters] Mr... Mr... Spielberg, I’m a really big fan of Tintin. I have to be in it.' He did that Hollywood thing: 'Yeah, yeah, we’ll see.'"
"Then two weeks later my wife and I are in a grocery store, and my wife says, 'Honey, that’s Steven Spielberg.' I say there’s no way Spielberg is grocery shopping on his own; he has people to do that for him. But there he was, shopping for cereal by himself. So I went up to him and said, 'Steven... er, Tintin?' [Laughs] He said, 'You know what, I think I have one part left. Do you speak French?' and I said [adopts best Clouseau impression] 'But of course!'”
So there it is. If you fancy appearing in War Horse, try the Tesco's nearest Dartmoor. Cereal aisle.
Of course we couldn't let Elwes go without asking about that role. Yes, Westley is still a big part of his life. "I still get letters and children attacking me on the street with swords," He laughed. "My grave will probably have ‘As you wish’ written on it."
Head over to our Movie-Con blog for the full down-low on the whole weekend from A (sgard) to Z (elda).