#actors with dwarfism

[a-little-revolution]

It seems like you're a big fan of Warwick Davis, I was wondering if there are any other little people actors you really like, especially women and trans/nb actors?

Hello! Yes I do enjoy Warwick Davis! Willow (1988) remains one of my favourite LP films, and I've really enjoyed his career of fantastical characters.

Like a lot of industries, white men make up a lot of the most famous Little actors (Warwick Davis, Peter Dinklage, Danny Woodburn, Martin Klebba, Verne Troyer), so I'm happy to mention some of my favourites outside that group!

Linda Hunt is a favourite of mine - she's a Hollywood veteran best known for her role in The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) where she was the first actor to win an academy award for playing someone of the opposite sex!! She's been on Broadway, done tv, film, and voice acting! You may know her as Lady Proxima in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018).

If you think you don't know Deep Roy, chances are you do! He's been a scale actor in countless award winning films including Star Wars (1980), Star Trek (2009-2016), The Never Ending Story (1984), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) and so many more! We owe so many beloved characters to scale actors and people hardly know it - Deep Roy has been responsible for dozens of them, I adore him.

Despite Patty Maloney's vast career in acting, I know her as Lois Addams from The Addams Family (1991)! Before my time she was in a variety of tv shows and films including Star Trek Voyager (1996), Little House on the Prairie (1982), and The Lord of the Rings (1978).

Cara Mailey is a young actress, author, presenter and activist! She's known for her role in Derry Girls (2018) and Read all About It! (2021), as well as her ebook "I Got This" - which speaks on her experience living with Achondroplasia. I wanted to be sure to give her an honourable mention because at only fifteen she's already become an activist for the LP community! I'm excited to see how her career evolves!

Thank you for the ask! Be sure to check these folks out!

[tyrannuspitch]

loki odinson, the nine realms' tallest short king,

[nessa007]

Why do the dwarfs look cartoony like its life action they are supposed to look like short humans not like they got dragged out of the animated movie. Like what is the point of live action if they dont make it look realistic. If this is honestly the way they are going with it i might have preffered the woodland spirits or wathever they wanted to turn them into originally.

me @ disney

[dragontamer05]

An interesting video on it

[sweetthoughtsbymarie]

October 30th

Peter Dinklage – Actor (Achondroplasia Dwarfism) Dinklage has a common form of dwarfism known as achondroplasia, and stands 4 ft 5 in (1.35 m) tall. He has used his celebrity status to raise social awareness of dwarfism. He was born June 11th 1969, like a lot of disabled people Peter had to come to terms with his diagnosis and let go of his anger and bitterness. He is married and has children.…

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

ok so like i have been ragging on the snow white reboot for regular disney reboot reasons but like. you guys do understand that them cgi-ing the dwarves instead of casting actual fucking actors with dwarfism is like. theeee most ableist fucking thing they could've done right

[queer-ragnelle]

I've been working on that post about Little People in Arthuriana by collecting and reading lots of articles and documenting the portrayals in Medieval Literature, Modern Retellings, as well as Film/TV; it's... disheartening. So I just watched Willow (1988) and not only is this what Hobbiton from LOTR should've looked like, but why can't we have characters like this in Arthuriana? When there are plenty of examples of kings and queens and knights and ladies with dwarfism right in the source material to utilize?

I know this movie was an outlier and many of the negative Arthurian examples also come from the 80s, but this proves it's possible to do better. Meanwhile Disney deleted the Willow TV show (also archived at the above link for your viewing pleasure) and just released a remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Bad enough to rehash the story at all, but not only did they fail to hire Little actors to play the Dwarfs, they didn't hire actors at all and used CGI. For a "live action" remake.

I tend to include gifs on a lot of my posts. Yet for this, making gifs of Little People in Arthurian legend feels like furthering the exploitation. They're unanimously neglected and depicted as nefarious bad guys or lackeys, often unnamed and without lines. Sometimes they're even physically assaulted on screen. Perhaps the Little man in Knightriders (1981) is a neutral-positive exception, but he's very much a background character.

I don't really have a point here besides wishing I had a positive alternative to highlight, which I usually strive to suggest whenever I make a critical post, but there isn't one. And that's a huge bummer.

[remratatouille]

No one will ever do a live adaptation of Snow White as well as Mirror Mirror did.

-Fantastic costume designs. Because it wasn't made by Disney, her outfits are different but still beautiful.

-Iconic cast (like I love lots of members of the cast)

-So magical but at the same time very real

-Funny

-ACTORS WITH DWARFISM PLAYING THE 7 DWARFS!!!! ALL OF THEM, 7 DIFFERENT ACTORS, ALL OF THEM REALLY INCREDIBLE ACTORS PERFECT FOR THE ROLES!!!

-Actually focuses on characters other than just Snow, which makes the story so interesting and unique whilst still sticking to the basics of the story

Overall, Mirror Mirror is such a good live action adaptation. It's not 100% true to the animated Disney film, and it's a bit more heavy plot-wise, but it's INCREDIBLE!!

Live Action Snow White

I hate how this could have been down WELL if Disney cared.

- Have actors with Dwarfism act as the Dwarves + consult experts and people w/ dwarfism on avoiding stereotypes and showing them as actual people.

- If you want a non-white Snow White, go for East Asia, specifically Japan, since there's some Japanese culture you could reference in regards to 'hair dark as night." Like the book In Praise of Shadows, you could have subtle nods to Japanese Aestheticism. (Although Rachel Z LITERALLY looks like a real life Disney Princess. If she's Snow White, they should have leaned into her Colombian + Polish background).

- Hell, if you want someone who isn't white or East Asian, you could get an actress with albinism or even vitiligo (would look a bit like snow?). That would be really cool, actually.

- You could make some interesting references to Japanese history and fashion. Like Kanzashi sticks as hair accessories AND weapons. They were sometimes used to fend off attacks & assassinate political rivals. Some Kanzashi has bells hanging from them that jingle in the wind. That would explain why the Prince would find her in the woods. I feel like we'd all be confused about hearing bells in the middle of nowhere lol.

- You could go with practical effects and actually make everything look magical. and REAL. NO CURSED POLAR EXPRESS CGI DWARVES PLEASE AND THANK YOU!!!

I hate that Disney is doing cheap rage bait and are happy to throw her to the wolves. They KNEW what would happen. They're just trying to start shit at this point.

Also people saying that Gal Godot is prettier than Rachel Zegler so she has no reason to be jealous haven't watched the original Snow White film. Not to mention Gal Godot sure is RACIST enough to be jealous of biracial woman's looks.

[cherry-pop-elf]

Mouthwashing Actor AU

Jimmy: Jimmy Ray (a nod to him being named after a Lana Del Ray Song) Is a type cast where he’s the sweetest person to ever exist, but is extremely good at playing Villians. It be like that in the horror industry. He won’t lie though. Playing a role like this was his biggest challenge, as he would need to get into the head of a You Know What.

Curly: Curly Ray, aka Jimmy’s older brother. He was born Amelia (aka his limbs were never fully developed) and is often type casted to play monsters or characters that require a certain mobility. Much like how child/people will dwarfism play certain characters. He’s happy that he gets to play a normal person, even for a short while. (That would be explaining why we get very little screen time of Curly looking normal)

Anya: Anya Ray. She was originally Jimmy’s wife, but it was a case of lavender marriage. She needed to stay in the states to finish her schooling and he was terrified of coming out as gay. Fortunately Jimmy found his one true love and Anya ended up marrying Curly as they had bonded so much through the traumatic situation. She is a credited doctor who uses her knowledge to help make the medical scenes more real. Along with fellow actress. New to acting but not the acting society.

Daisuke: Daisuke Ray. Daisuke is the one who Jimmy fell for. He was a special effects/makeup artist (who specialized in horror) that was pretty much part of the team because of often working on whatever madness Curly would get dressed up as. He wasn’t originally meant to play a role in the show, but the director saw that all of them were extremely close and found it very important to have to convey real emotions and a sense of reality. So this is Daisukes first role, and by proxy he is rather hard to get into a serious mindset. It works in the end as his sweet and playful silly attitude leads to plenty of improve that conveys realism the director wants.

Swansea: Director Swan. He’s the one in charge of it all, and plays a role as well. More so as the background character (hence why we have more fleshing from everyone else compared to him) and wanted to convey an important and serious story. He’s a semi retired director, so he uses his time to make passion projects. That means he has more ability to follow what HE wants and not get swayed by other people’s PG needs. He saw how these four specific actors/special effects artists were already very close and it brought him the motivation to follow through on this latest passion project. Hence why they all use their real first names. A means to really hammer in this is a real story, with in its sci-fi elements.

[alexanderwales]

I saw a post (which I cannot find now) which was about the casting of a Black woman as Elphaba in the new film version of Wicked, and pointing out that the musical is about discrimination, so this casting is a natural one.

But this seems ... kind of incorrect to me? That is, the musical has themes of personal identity, discrimination, prejudice, etc., but this is fantastical prejudice. So when, through casting or direction or acting choices or costuming or coding you pull some subtext (e.g. real-world prejudice) forward, you're changing the texture of the allegorical elements.

I don't think that this casting choice is wrong, I just don't find it to be "natural". It is a choice, and unlike a musical that was about nothing in particular, it's a choice that more meaningfully affects how the audience reads the musical. It makes the musical much less about prejudice generally, and much more about racial prejudice specifically. Maybe I'm being nit-picky about the word "natural" here, as though I think it's making a claim about what's in harmony with the work. Like "natural" means that someone is claiming the title of "most cohesive".

Imagine a version of Wicked where they cast a fat actor to play Elphaba. This obviously invites a different reading of the musical, right? Is this "less natural"? Is it "more natural"? I think it's a different choice to make, and I think people would be inclined to get different readings out of it.

This is the sort of thing that I sometimes have cause to think about, because I'm a writer, and have to decide on basic facts about characters, and figure out how those basic facts fit in with whatever kind of point (if any) I'm trying to hit.

If I wrote a story about how someone was kidnapped by aliens, and they think their human is just oh-so special, and this is maybe initially nice but it becomes clear that they just want the novelty human ... I would have choices for my human, right? And even if we keep all the dialog exactly the same, the readings become different if we're touching any kind of live wire. This would be a story about fetishism and exoticism and the way that makes a person feel like they're less of a person, or like they're only valuable for specific superficial traits.

So we could write our human to be an "everyman", nothing distinctive within the dominant culture. Or we could write our human to be someone with dwarfism. Or we could write our human to be an Asian woman. Or we could write our human to be transwoman. Or we could write our human to be an influencer. And all of these would substantially change our reading, right? The surface of the story wouldn't change, but the comparisons we invite would be different, and that changes the experience of the story, subconsciously or not. None of these are wrong, none are more natural, they're just choices.

[a-little-revolution]

What are your thoughts on Warwick Davis? He is a famous British actor with dwarfism. I loved him in Willow since it was my first exposure to him outside of the Hogwarts movies.

Hello! I have indeed discussed Warwick Davis on this blog! I absolutely adore him and his career, especially in Willow (1988) and his various roles in Harry Potter (though I no longer support J.K Rowling).

Like all Little actors, he's had to play some not so great roles, but for the most part Warwick has been a major talent within the fantasy genre. He is beloved in Hollywood and holds a special place in my heart!

[adorkastock]

Hello, good morning/afternoon/night! I've been trying to find dinamic posing references of people with dwarfism, but google always refers to fiction dwarves. Would you know where/how to look for better references? And, might I ask, would there be plans for the future for a model with dwarfism in the stock?

Hi there! I am not familiar with any models with dwarfism currently doing pose reference modeling. You could try looking up some photos of some well known actors and start with some studies there perhaps? I would certainly be interested in hiring someone with dwarfism to model for me, particularly someone with experience in acting, modeling, or cosplay. Maybe someone who sees this will be able to point you in a helpful direction in the replies or reblogs. ♥

[imagitory]

I was talking to some of my coworkers about the new Snow White earlier this week, and the things we might've tried to make the film better had we been part of the production team. I thought a lot of these ideas were fun, so here's a compilation of them here -- treat each bullet point as a separate idea, rather than a combination, since many of them came from different people.

Cast Anne Hathaway as the Evil Queen instead of Gal Gadot. She's gorgeous, a Disney movie alumnus, and a talented actress and singer.

Have the Evil Queen be the one character in the film who DOESN'T sing, to make her more of a dark shadow over the rest of the cast. If nothing else, Disney villains in the early days didn't sing because singing was subliminally more associated with heroism than villainy.

Have the Evil Queen sing a song more akin to Lana Del Rey's cover of Once Upon a Dream: something haunting and sinister, rather than campy.

Have the Evil Queen sing a song akin to Hellfire from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, depicting her destructive obsession with destroying Snow White.

Have the Evil Queen sing coldly and unemotionally until she becomes the Hag, and then have her go off the friggin' deep end both sanity-wise and musically, the way Henry Jekyll/Edward Hyde does in the song Alive in the musical Jekyll and Hyde.

Make one of the Dwarfs the Prince. Yes, you read that right -- if the Prince is so underdeveloped and the Dwarfs are so central to the story, have one of them be Snow White's love interest. They basically already did it in Pretear, an anime based on Snow White, by having their "Grumpy" role as a tsundere love interest, as well as in Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs. Only this time, have the love interest be played by an actor with dwarfism and flesh him out into more of a bad-ass warrior, Thorin-Oakenshield-type dwarf. No transformations into someone of average height who's "conventionally handsome."

Give the Prince and Snow White a childhood backstory, not unlike how Bambi and Faline do in Bambi or Robin Hood and Maid Marian do in Robin Hood.

Have Tim Burton direct the film, or at least take some inspiration from his overall visual aesthetic. A Gothic twist on a fairy tale about a girl with hair as black as ebony, skin as white as snow, and lips as red as blood could've been interesting.

Have the Queen compare Snow White's beauty to an apple, not a rose, to tie into the overall theme. For the Queen, the idea is not only can Snow White's beauty rot away, but she's also easily able to be devoured with what's left of her being tossed aside, unlike the Queen, who's a "far superior diamond." But of course, diamonds also provide no nourishment or life -- it's cold beauty that only has as much value as greedy people bestow upon it.

Have Dopey use sign language to communicate rather than speak.

Have the Dwarfs unhappily mine gems for the Evil Queen, giving them both a reason to fear her and a direct stake in seeing her defeated in the end.

Flesh out the Dwarfs so that their up-and-coming actors can show off the breadth of their abilities. Make Doc the oldest and resident "doting mom" of the group. Make Sleepy the laid-back, sassy old grandpa type. Make Happy the peacemaker who just wants everyone to be happy and get along. And so on.

Don't make a straight-forward remake at all, but instead a documentary or historical-fiction retelling a la Saving Mr. Banks about the making of the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It'd be an amazing underdog story that focuses around the very first full-length animated film ever made as well as arguably the first Hollywood blockbuster. Have Tom Hanks reprise his role as Walt Disney and have Rachel Zegler sing as Snow White for the soundtrack.

[sweetthoughtsbymarie]

October 11th

Tony Cox is an Actor who has Dwarfism lets take a look at Tony’s story. One of my favorite movies personally of Tony’s is Bad Santa 1 and 2. Tony was born March, 31st 1958. Tony’s form of dwarfism is Achondroplasia. This affects his bone growth in the limbs,spine, and skull. He has had challenges that he has been open about such as demeaning. He also said that competion for roles for the…

[cocoabubbelle-newblog]

Personal Opinion

I’ve been quiet about Disney’s Live Action take for Snow White up till now, so here is what I have to say:

Of all the things that concern me for this movie, Rachel Zegler’s and Gal Gadot’s casting isn’t one of them. I think Rachel is unconventionally pretty, and being of Puerto Rican descent myself, I was excited that this Snow White would be Latina. While the hairstyle and costuming isn’t great, saying that there is no way the Mirror would say she is fairer than Gal Gadot’s Evil Queen (Gal Gadot also being a beautiful woman) and calling her ugly is just unnecessarily unkind. Maybe this is a stretch, but FAIR doesn’t only mean ‘most light-skinned’ or ‘most beautiful’; it also means ‘free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice.’ Based on the song that was recently released, I am inclined to believe that THIS is the take the story will have on the phrase Fairest of them All.

Again, being of PR descent and having one side of the family from PR ranging of all skin tones, I think Zegler was neither “too white” to play Puerto Rican Maria from West Side Story, nor is “too dark” to play Snow White. That’s just me though.

The words on the necklace feel more like they belong to the theme from Live Action Mulan.

I do wish they stuck with casting people with dwarfism for the dwarves. The CGI doesn’t offend me, but c’mon. We’ve seen Tolkein/Narnian/DnD/etc dwarves. Emphasis on Narnian bc when they did the first two films, Disney DID get actors with dwarfism and put them in great makeup/costumes. Also kind of interesting that Peter Dinklage was willing to play a mythical dwarf here but his comments regarding the Snow White (2024/5) film potentially cost others with dwarfism those roles. Looking at the official cast, only ONE of the voice actors for the dwarves is Martin Klebba = Grumpy. Not that dissimilar to the last Grumpy-esque dwarf he played in Mirror Mirror….who casted actors with dwarfism…

Some of the official comments made to promote the movie, including from the actors, have made me roll my eyes so much that I’ve cramped my extraocular muscles. You don’t have to agree with the direction the original movie took with their characters and messages, but putting it down in order to try to elevate the new adaptation seems to be not the wisest decision.

“It’s not the 30’s anymore~” Guys. The earliest versions of the original fairytale sometimes had SW’s own birth mother being jealous of and attempting to kill her, the dwarves MADE the young princess clean and cook for them instead of her offering up those skills, and the prince was an actual stranger who was willing to buy her dead body from the dwarves, among other weird things that the animated film changed/left out. How Disney handled the romance, characters, and overall plot back in the late 1930s was actually good imho.

I liked Zack Snyder’s take on the DC Universe, so the color wash ranging from dark to bright in this film doesn’t bug me.

Is it impossible to use and train real animals anymore in a humane environment? Must the majority of them be CGI?

The potential love interest being a mix of Robin Hood and Flynn Rider is ok I suppose. Not super original, but ok. (I will forever defend the original Prince though; he is NOT an old creepy stalker thank you very much;). HOW.E.VER. The recent comments from those who worked on the movie piqued my interest, namely that they drew inspiration from the discarded draft that the original prince was held prisoner by the queen in her dungeon and that this new character was disillusioned by the power structured of the world. So whether or not this means that this roguish rebel is actually our prince in disguise after all remains to be seen. (Probably not; I tend to overthink things.)

The music is pretty so far. Might buy some of the songs when the soundtrack becomes available. Don’t think some of the original songs needed to be replaced, but Waiting on a Wish sounds lovely even though it’s not I’m Wishing.

If I do wind up seeing it, I’ll just view it how I’ve always tried to view remakes of the originals I loved: just a different take that I am not obligated to love, but will be pleasantly surprised if I do (ex. Cinderella (2015) and Little Mermaid (2023) among some).

Update: saw the movie. Some parts made me roll my eyes and/cringe, but ultimately I had a lot of fun and genuinely enjoyed the rest of it!

[galindathrop]

I'm now convinced Snow White was a way to set up Rachel Zegler to fail.

Her co-star is a Israeli woman who served in the IDF.

Her overall styling was awful. Who approved the bob?

The music doesn't fit Snow White at all.

The belting style of the music didn't suit much of the performers. Rachel can literally sing like Snow White so why are you not letting her?

Her former co-star & ladder puller, Peter Dinklidge, discouraged Disney from casting real actors with dwarfism, making her act against tennis balls or whatever during the movie. The elimination of realness in a live-action remake. He also was racist towards her too.

Disney telling her what to say during THAT interview.

Rachel's interviews during D23 get taken too far out of context,

Forcing her to be around Gal Gadot.

The Variety article.

Racism thrown at her with zero protection from the people who employed her.