The German fantasy film “The NeverEnding Story” is 40 years old. To celebrate the anniversary, actor Noah Hathaway spoke about a dangerous stunt that nearly cost him his life.
What does Noah Hathaway say? The American actor, who played the role of Atreyu in the cult film “The NeverEnding Story” at just twelve years old, recalled in an interview with indiewire.com a nearly fatal accident during filming.
According to Hathaway, the German director Wolfgang Petersen was known for demanding that actors perform their own stunts. Atreyu was supposed to fall from trees, ride horses, fight through a swamp, and confront monsters.
Even before the actual filming began, extensive riding training was scheduled, the actor further explained. And during that, an accident occurred that would affect him into adulthood.
Before we started filming, I was training on a horse. It got spooked, took off, and jumped over a fence. I flipped, and it fell on me and broke my back. I spent two months in traction in a German hospital before we could even shoot a scene. It was a lot, but I pulled myself together, and we filmed for almost a whole year.
Noah Hathaway via indiewire.com
Atreyu was supposed to be green
What other anecdotes does the actor reveal? Noah Hathaway had more memories from the shoot:
- Atreyu was originally supposed to have green skin, so the boy was painted green at first. Later, they abandoned this idea and opted for a tanned protagonist. Noah Hathaway was therefore tasked with visiting a tanning salon twice a week.
- The pressure during filming must have been enormous. Hathaway describes: “Wolfgang was a madman. We did 30, 40 takes, sometimes of stunts like falling from a tree. Everything hurt. “
- Painful was also an encounter with Gmork, an evil, wolf-like creature. It was said to weigh a few hundred pounds and was thrown at the actor in a scene using an air cannon. At one point, it knocked Hathaway unconscious: “My father said I snored for about five minutes,” the actor recalls.
- It was not the only time Hathaway lost consciousness during filming. The scene where Atreyu is deep in the swamp was also dangerous. In addition to mud, dry ice was used to give the sequence an eerie atmosphere. It was cold. Plus, there was mud everywhere. When too much of it got into the actor’s mouth, he had to be pulled unconscious from the artificial swamp.
Looking back, Noah Hathaway comments on the filming back then: “It was totally crazy. There’s no way you could get away with something like that today.” Pretty shocking, right?
Why should you have seen “The NeverEnding Story”? The 1984 film is based on the novel of the same name by Michael Ende and thrilled an entire generation of fantasy enthusiasts with great effects, lovable child actors, quirky characters, and the exciting battle against the all-consuming Nothing.
As viewers, we follow the ten-year-old Bastian Balthasar Bux, who secretly reads “The NeverEnding Story” in his school’s attic, but also the young warrior Atreyu, who in the fantasy world of the book must stop the Nothing and save the severely ill Childlike Empress.
Those who saw the film back then with enthusiasm still remember the luck dragon Fuchur, the encounter with the ancient Morla, or the goblin couple Engywuk and Urgl. And maybe you now also have the wonderful music in your ears that plays when Atreyu rides through the air on Fuchur. Here’s another filming anecdote from an actor: The star from Gladiator had a problem three months before filming: he was bald and weighed too much
