111 Fun Facts About The Princess Bride

Who directed The Princess Bride (1987)?

Rob Reiner directed The Princess Bride, a novel his father had given him; when he pitched it, a Paramount executive who had promised to back whatever he chose replied, 'Anything but that.'

Who wrote the 1973 novel and adapted it for the screen?

William Goldman wrote the 1973 novel and the screenplay; he had already won screenwriting Oscars for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men.

What does Westley say every time Buttercup gives him an order?

'As you wish' is Westley's only answer to her orders, and Buttercup is amazed to discover that what he means each time is 'I love you'.

What is the name of the kingdom where Buttercup lives?

Buttercup lives in Florin; five years after Westley is lost at sea she is betrothed, still grieving, to its prince, Humperdinck, who is secretly plotting her murder.

Prince Humperdinck plans to start a war with which neighbouring country?

Humperdinck wants war with Guilder, the rival country across the sea; he hires Vizzini to kill Buttercup near the Guilder frontier so the crime can be blamed on Guilder.

In The Princess Bride, what closes in on Buttercup when she leaps from the kidnappers' boat?

Shrieking eels close in, growing louder as they get ready to feed; the grandfather breaks off to promise his anxious grandson that she does not get eaten by the eels at this time.

Vizzini describes himself as coming from where?

Vizzini comes from Sicily; his last words warn that one should 'never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line'.

Vizzini threatens to send Fezzik back to being unemployed in which place?

Greenland: Vizzini snarls, 'Do you want me to send you back to where you were, unemployed in Greenland?', though Goldman's novel makes Fezzik a Turkish wrestler who was only out of work there.

Where does the man in black duel Inigo Montoya?

They duel atop the Cliffs of Insanity, where Inigo sportingly waits for the man in black to finish his climb before they cross swords.

What poison does the man in black use in the battle of wits?

Iocane powder: the man in black has Vizzini sniff it and smell nothing, because it is odorless, tasteless and dissolves instantly in liquid.

In The Princess Bride's battle of wits, which country does Vizzini say the poison comes from?

Australia: Vizzini reasons that it is 'entirely peopled with criminals', who are used to not being trusted, so he clearly cannot choose the wine in front of his opponent.

How does the man in black beat Vizzini in the battle of wits?

Both goblets were poisoned; the man in black had spent years building an immunity to the poison, so he drank safely while Vizzini died mid-laugh.

Which place completes Vizzini's 'classic blunder' warning, 'Never get involved in a land war in ...'?

Asia tops Vizzini's list of classic blunders; he is still cackling over having outwitted the man in black when he falls over dead.

What one-word exclamation is Vizzini's catchphrase?

'Inconceivable!' is Vizzini's signature, shouted each time the man in black survives another attempt to shake him off.

What does Inigo finally tell Vizzini about the word he keeps shouting?

It doesn't mean what he thinks: after the man in black survives the cut rope, Inigo says, 'You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.'

How does Fezzik ask if anyone would like a snack, in rhyme?

When Inigo asks 'Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?', Fezzik rhymes 'If there are, we'll all be dead'; after Vizzini's 'No more rhymes now, I mean it!' he adds 'Anybody want a peanut?'

How does the man in black defeat Fezzik?

Unable to out-muscle the giant, the man in black clings to Fezzik's back and chokes him unconscious, winning the 'sportsmanlike' hand-to-hand bout Fezzik himself proposed.

What does Buttercup call Westley when ordering him about in the opening scenes?

Buttercup addresses Westley only as 'Farm boy' while ordering him to polish her saddle and fetch a pitcher, until the day she realises she loves him back.

What are the creatures that attack Westley in the Fire Swamp called?

They are the Rodents of Unusual Size, or R.O.U.S.; Westley has just said he does not think they exist when one leaps on him in the Fire Swamp.

In the film The Princess Bride, what is the torture chamber where Westley is taken called?

In the film Westley is held in the Pit of Despair, where the Albino tends his wounds before Count Rugen tests the Machine on him.

In William Goldman's novel The Princess Bride, what is the underground lair where Rugen tortures Westley called?

The Zoo of Death is the novel's underground lair where Rugen holds and tortures Westley; it is Westley's dying scream that leads Inigo and Fezzik to it.

What kind of book does the sick grandson warily ask his grandfather if The Princess Bride is?

A kissing book: he wants to know where the sports are, yet by the end he says he doesn't mind the kissing so much and asks his grandfather to come back and read it again.

What was Inigo's father Domingo Montoya's trade?

Domingo Montoya was a swordsmith; he slaved a year over a blade for the six-fingered man, then refused to hand it over for a tenth of the promised price and was killed.

What did Rugen leave young Inigo with after their first duel?

Two scars, one on each cheek: Inigo was eleven when he challenged his father's killer and lost, and Rugen let him live but marked his face.

What does Inigo reveal mid-duel to explain his smile?

He is not left-handed: Inigo tosses the sword to his right hand and takes control, until the man in black announces that he is not left-handed either and switches too.

In The Princess Bride, what does Count Rugen's Machine suck away from Westley?

Years of his life: Rugen's first test takes a single year and he asks how it felt, 'for posterity'; an enraged Humperdinck later shoves the lever all the way to fifty.

Which threat ends Inigo Montoya's rehearsed greeting to his father's killer?

Prepare to die. Inigo has waited most of his life to say it, and after Rugen's dagger wounds him he rallies by repeating the whole greeting again and again.

When the cornered Rugen offers Inigo anything he wants, what does Inigo say he wants?

Inigo says he wants his father back ('I want my father back') and runs Rugen through; Mandy Patinkin has said he drew on losing his own father to cancer for the scene.

What does Miracle Max declare about Westley's condition?

He is only mostly dead, says Max: mostly dead is slightly alive, whereas with all dead there is usually only one thing you can do, go through his clothes and look for loose change.

Why is Miracle Max out of work when Inigo and Fezzik bring Westley to him?

Prince Humperdinck fired him: Max calls the prince 'the King's stinking son' and agrees to help once Inigo promises a revived Westley will bring him 'humiliations galore'.

What does Miracle Max call out as the trio leaves his hut?

Max shouts 'Have fun storming the castle!'; when Valerie quietly asks whether he thinks it will work, he replies 'It would take a miracle.'

Which sandwich does Miracle Max rank above true love as the greatest thing in the world?

Mutton, lettuce and tomato: Max puts 'a nice M.L.T.' above true love, then insists that what Westley really gasped was 'to blave', which he claims means to bluff.

How does Westley answer when Humperdinck proposes they fight 'to the death'?

Westley replies 'To the pain', then describes leaving Humperdinck his ears so that every cry of horror at his ruined face will echo in them.

Why does Westley tell Buttercup her marriage to Humperdinck is not valid?

Westley asks 'Did you say I do?'; she never said 'I do', because Humperdinck told the clergyman to skip to the end when the castle came under attack, so she is not married.

What does Westley offer Inigo at the end of The Princess Bride?

Westley asks if Inigo has ever considered piracy and offers him the title of Dread Pirate Roberts, since Inigo's revenge is done and he has no idea what to do next.

Who plays the grandfather in the 1987 film The Princess Bride?

Peter Falk, TV's Columbo, plays the grandfather, whose grandson starts out grumbling about being read to and ends by asking him to come back and read it again tomorrow.

Which actor plays Prince Humperdinck?

Chris Sarandon plays Prince Humperdinck, who proves a coward: faced with a Westley too weak to stand, he drops his sword on command and lets himself be tied to a chair.

Which actor plays the six-fingered Count Rugen?

Christopher Guest plays Count Rugen; when Cary Elwes asked him to hit him for real with his sword hilt, the blow knocked Elwes out cold and sent him to hospital.

André the Giant, who played Fezzik in The Princess Bride, was born in which country?

France: he was born André René Roussimoff in Coulommiers, though wrestling promoters billed him as hailing from Grenoble in the French Alps.

Which future action star was William Goldman's second choice for Fezzik when The Princess Bride was first pitched?

Arnold Schwarzenegger, then almost unknown, was the backup when André the Giant could not commit in the 1970s; by the time the film was finally made he had become too expensive to hire.

Why could André the Giant not really carry Buttercup while filming The Princess Bride?

His back was too painful, strained by carrying his own great weight, so the actress Fezzik 'catches' at the end was really held up by hidden cables.

Sword master Bob Anderson, who trained Elwes and Patinkin for The Princess Bride, had doubled for which villain in duels?

Darth Vader: Anderson wore the costume for the lightsaber duels of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, a secret until Mark Hamill revealed it in 1983.

Which real Irish landmark stood in for the sheer rock face the kidnappers climb with Buttercup in The Princess Bride?

The Cliffs of Moher in County Clare play the heights Fezzik scales by rope; at the top Vizzini cuts it, yet the man in black clings to the rock and keeps climbing.

Which musician composed the score for The Princess Bride?

Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler wrote the score; he asked, half in jest, that the cap the director wore in This Is Spinal Tap appear on screen, and one like it sits in the grandson's bedroom.

What was The Princess Bride's only Academy Award nomination?

Its sole nomination was Best Original Song, for 'Storybook Love'; the now-beloved screenplay and the score were passed over entirely.

In The Princess Bride, what is Miracle Max's miracle pill coated with to help it go down?

Chocolate: Valerie says the coating makes it go down easier, then warns them to wait fifteen minutes for full potency and not to go swimming for a good hour.

Which body added The Princess Bride to its film registry?

The Library of Congress chose it for the National Film Registry in 2016, honouring a modest box-office success of 1987 that found its cult following later.

Who is the fictional 'original' author whose work Goldman claims to be abridging?

S. Morgenstern is Goldman's invention, and the film keeps the joke: the grandfather opens the book and reads out 'The Princess Bride, by S. Morgenstern. Chapter One.'

The two rival countries in The Princess Bride share their names with old European what?

Coins: both names were old European money, and the war looming between the two countries is a put-up job, with one prince plotting a murder to pin on his neighbour.

Where did William Goldman get the idea for The Princess Bride?

The story grew from tales he told his two daughters: one asked for a princess and the other for a bride, which gave Goldman his title.

What is the title of the unfinished Princess Bride sequel William Goldman teased in later editions?

The sequel is Buttercup's Baby: later editions print a sample chapter about the kidnapping of the couple's infant child, Waverly, but Goldman died in 2018 without writing the rest.

In later editions of The Princess Bride, which famous author does Goldman claim was picked to abridge its sequel?

Stephen King is the abridger the fictional estate signs up in Goldman's running joke about his feud with its lawyers, a choice made, he complains, purely to spite him.

What won William Goldman back The Princess Bride's film rights?

His own money: after the studio's production chief was fired and the project stalled for years, Goldman paid to buy the rights back himself.

Which television producer, the director's old sitcom boss, financed The Princess Bride?

Norman Lear had been the director's boss on All in the Family and had already paid for This Is Spinal Tap, so he put up the money through his company Act III Communications.

In the 2020 quarantine 'Home Movie' remake, who gave a final performance as the grandfather?

Carl Reiner played the grandfather opposite his own son as the grandson in the closing scene, recorded three days before he died in June 2020; it was his last performance.

Fred Savage reprised his Princess Bride grandson role in a 2018 PG-13 recut of which film?

Once Upon a Deadpool, the PG-13 recut of Deadpool 2, has Deadpool kidnap the grown-up Fred Savage and retell the film to him as a bedtime story.

How does the man in black finish 'Anyone who says differently is'?

Selling something: it is his retort when Buttercup accuses him of mocking her grief, though the lost love she is mourning is the very man saying it.

What parting words does the man in black offer the beaten Fezzik on the trail?

'Rest well, and dream of large women,' he says, a courtesy to the giant who had thrown his first rock wide on purpose so that they could fight fairly.

Which Irish actor says he was turned down for Fezzik in The Princess Bride as 'not a giant'?

Liam Neeson, who stands 6 ft 4 in, recalls the director looking him over and exclaiming, 'He's not a giant!'; the part went to André the Giant, billed at 7 ft 4 in.

At which festival did The Princess Bride premiere and win the People's Choice Award in 1987?

Toronto festival audiences voted it the People's Choice Award, yet the film made only a modest showing in cinemas and became a cult favourite later, on home video.

Who played Buttercup in Jason Reitman's 2011 live script reading at LACMA?

Mindy Kaling read Buttercup at Jason Reitman's 2011 LACMA live read, with Paul Rudd as Westley, Patton Oswalt as Vizzini and Cary Elwes reading Humperdinck.

Which Irish playwright drove the young André the Giant, Fezzik of The Princess Bride, to school?

Samuel Beckett, the author of Waiting for Godot, lived close to the family's home outside Paris and was one of several adults who gave the local children lifts.

Ross Ulbricht ran which darknet market under an alias borrowed from the pirate in The Princess Bride?

Silk Road was seized by US law enforcement, and a month later somebody else reopened the site and claimed the very same alias.

Which star of the sitcom Taxi was considered for the role of Vizzini in The Princess Bride?

Danny DeVito was considered, but the part went to another small actor, picked so that his size would contrast with the giant Fezzik.

Miracle Max in The Princess Bride was pitched to his actor as a chance to play which comedy director?

Mel Brooks was the bait, and the ad-libbing that followed was so funny that the film's own director had to walk off the set because he could not stop laughing.

Which comedian auditioned to play Buttercup in The Princess Bride and joined its cast reunion in 2020?

Whoopi Goldberg lost the princess to Robin Wright, then came back 33 years later to read both the Ancient Booer and the grandson's mother.

What did Mandy Patinkin possibly crack holding in laughter at Miracle Max in The Princess Bride?

A rib is what he suspects he cracked, though he came through the film's long sword duel itself without being hurt.

In the year The Princess Bride opened, which wrestler faced André the Giant at WrestleMania III?

Hulk Hogan body-slammed and then pinned him before a crowd billed as a record, a result André had agreed to beforehand, mostly for the sake of his health.

After playing the grandson in The Princess Bride, Fred Savage found fame in which nostalgic TV series?

The Wonder Years cast him as Kevin Arnold from 1988 to 1993 and brought him two Emmy nominations for lead actor in a comedy series.

In The Princess Bride, the secret door to Count Rugen's hidden torture chamber is set into what?

A tree in the forest hides the way down, and the count opens it for the prince just after the two have gone over their plan to murder the bride.

The director and writer of The Princess Bride reunited for which thriller about a captive novelist?

Misery won Kathy Bates the Oscar for Best Actress as Annie Wilkes, the obsessive fan who holds her favourite writer prisoner.

Which comedian and future Oscars host plays the folk healer Miracle Max in The Princess Bride?

Billy Crystal spent only three days on the set, hidden under old-age make-up, and was allowed to improvise some of his lines.

Which actor and playwright, later the voice of Rex in Toy Story, plays Vizzini in The Princess Bride?

Wallace Shawn has guessed that the Toy Story director cast him as the nervous dinosaur after seeing how excitable he was as the kidnappers' scheming leader.

Which mock documentary about a heavy metal band did the director of The Princess Bride make in 1984?

This Is Spinal Tap was paid for by the same producer, and its success convinced the director that he could take on a fairy tale Hollywood had failed to film for more than a decade.

Cary Elwes sent up his Westley image from The Princess Bride as the hero of which 1993 spoof?

Robin Hood: Men in Tights gave him a second famous lead six years after the fairy tale, long before he found a new audience in the Saw horror films.

Bonetti, Capo Ferro, Thibault and Agrippa, all name-dropped in The Princess Bride, were real what?

Swordplay teachers and theorists of the 16th and 17th centuries, they ran schools or wrote rapier manuals, so the two duellists are comparing genuine styles.

Inigo Montoya, the swordsman hired by Vizzini in The Princess Bride, comes from which country?

Spain is his homeland in both the book and the film, and he was a drifting drunk when the kidnappers' leader first found and hired him.

In The Princess Bride, which gang does Fezzik join to clear the Thieves' Forest before the wedding?

The Brute Squad is raised on the prince's orders, supposedly to flush out foreign assassins, and serving in it is how Fezzik stumbles on a drunken Inigo.

What does Fezzik find in the prince's stables for the final escape in The Princess Bride?

Four white horses, one for each of them, carry Fezzik, Inigo and the reunited lovers away from the castle as dawn breaks.

The author of The Princess Bride won an Oscar for scripting which 1976 film about Watergate?

All the President's Men won him a second Academy Award, yet he later said it was the one screenplay he wished he had never gone near.

In The Princess Bride, what is the grandson told when he demands to know who kills the prince?

Nobody does, his grandfather admits, because the hero chooses to leave the prince alive to live out a long, lonely life as a coward.

Which future star of the horror film Scream auditioned for the role of Buttercup in The Princess Bride?

Courteney Cox was one of at least seven actresses who read for the princess, a list that also took in Uma Thurman, Meg Ryan and Sean Young.

Which actor turned Oscar-winning director once tried and failed to film The Princess Bride?

Robert Redford joined a line of defeated suitors that included Norman Jewison, and the man who finally made the film called the book an impossible sell.

Which leading director of the French New Wave once tried to adapt The Princess Bride for the screen?

François Truffaut, who made The 400 Blows, tried and gave up, and he died in 1984, three years before the story finally reached cinemas.

Cary Elwes was chosen as Westley in The Princess Bride on the strength of which Tudor costume drama?

Lady Jane cast him as the doomed husband of England's nine-day queen, and the director then flew to Germany to meet him rather than wait for an audition.

Robin Wright took leave from which daytime soap opera to play Buttercup in The Princess Bride?

Santa Barbara had cast her at 18 as Kelly Capwell, a part that earned her several Daytime Emmy nominations and that she kept until 1988.

Which growth disorder was already wearing down André the Giant when he filmed The Princess Bride?

Acromegaly, an excess of growth hormone, was first spotted by doctors while he was wrestling in Japan in 1970, and he never had it treated.

The Princess Bride won which science fiction and fantasy prize for Best Dramatic Presentation?

The Hugo Award is voted on by science fiction fans, who in 1988 preferred the gentle fairy tale to both RoboCop and Predator.

The Princess Bride sits at number 88 on which of the American Film Institute's 100 Years countdowns?

Passions was the 2002 list of the greatest love stories in American cinema, with Casablanca first and the fairy tale twelve places from the bottom.

Which short-lived mobile streaming service premiered the homemade 2020 remake of The Princess Bride?

Quibi released it in short chapters to raise money for a food charity, with famous actors filming themselves at home on their own phones.

The Princess Bride changed hands when its backer Embassy Pictures was sold to which drinks maker?

Coca-Cola bought the studio, so the film followed its producer to his new company, Act III, as only its second feature after Stand by Me.

How does the full title of the novel The Princess Bride describe its retelling of a supposed classic?

The Good Parts Version is the joke behind the whole book, in which the author claims to be trimming a long-winded classic by a writer who never existed.

In the novel The Princess Bride, what is the profession of the narrator's fictional wife, Helen?

A psychiatrist named Helen is pure invention, since the author's real wife, Ilene Jones, was a photographer.

In the sequel chapter added to The Princess Bride, what is the name of Westley's daughter?

Waverly is snatched by a madman and thrown from a mountainside, and the chapter ends with Fezzik leaping after her to break her fall.

Readers who write off for the missing reunion scene of The Princess Bride novel are sent what instead?

A letter about legal problems arrives, blaming an invented lawyer named Kermit Shog who supposedly guards the estate of the equally invented original author.

Unlike the film, how does the original novel The Princess Bride leave its heroes on the last page?

Still on the run is where the book stops, with old wounds reopening and the escape going wrong, though the narrator hints that they get away.

What did Count Rugen leave the young Inigo Montoya with after sparing his life in The Princess Bride?

A scar on each cheek marked the boy for life, and years later Inigo cuts the same two wounds into the count's face before finishing him.

In The Princess Bride, what powers the life-draining torture machine invented by Count Rugen?

Water drives the device, which the count says takes years off a victim's life, and he begins by draining a single year from Westley.

What is the name of the pirate ship that Westley comes to command in The Princess Bride?

Revenge is the ship that changes captains in secret, each old one sailing on for a while as first mate so the new crew accepts his successor.

In The Princess Bride, the original feared pirate is said to have retired years ago to which region?

Patagonia is where the first holder of the name had been living for fifteen years, while a string of successors kept his reputation alive at sea.

Which member of the Beyond the Fringe quartet plays the clergyman at the wedding in The Princess Bride?

Peter Cook is billed simply as the Impressive Clergyman, and a Monty Python star, Eric Idle, read his part at the cast's 2020 reunion.

Which Oscar-nominated comic actress plays Valerie, the wife of Miracle Max, in The Princess Bride?

Carol Kane and her screen husband met before flying to England to invent the old couple's backstory, then improvised some of their lines on set.

Which Olympic fencer turned film sword master coached the two duellists of The Princess Bride?

Bob Anderson fenced for Britain at the 1952 Olympics and had the two leads learn each other's moves as well as their own, to avoid an accident.

The stars of The Princess Bride studied old sword fights and loved which 1952 swashbuckler's duel best?

Scaramouche, starring Stewart Granger and Mel Ferrer, came out on top after the pair set out to watch every sword fight ever filmed.

Which moves in the great duel of The Princess Bride were the only ones not performed by the two actors?

The somersaults, two of them, went to stunt doubles, and every other move was fought by the actors, who spent most of their free time on set practising.

What really held Robin Wright up when Fezzik appears to catch Buttercup in The Princess Bride?

Unseen cables took her weight, and in the fight with Fezzik Cary Elwes was really walking up ramps below the camera rather than hanging from André's shoulders.

Which medieval manor house in Derbyshire served as a filming location for The Princess Bride?

Haddon Hall had appeared a year earlier in the very costume drama that won Cary Elwes the lead, and the crew spent five weeks on location around the county.

Which 1983 novel did the author of The Princess Bride publish under the same invented pen name?

The Silent Gondoliers claims to explain why the boatmen of Venice no longer sing, and it is the only other book credited to the imaginary author.

What do Miracle Max and his wife concoct to bring Westley round in The Princess Bride?

A pill does the job, bringing Westley round as his friends reach the castle, although at first he is too weak to move.

In The Princess Bride, what does Vizzini cut in a bid to shake off the man in black?

The climbing rope drops away, yet the man in black clings to the bare rock face and simply carries on without it.

How does Buttercup reach Westley in the ravine once she realises who he is in The Princess Bride?

Tumbling down the hill after him, she lands beside the man she had shoved over the edge moments earlier, believing him to be her true love's killer.