From Variety · Marc Malkin · · 1m 10s
The crown that gave Woody Norman a splitting headache
Playing a teenage king in Paul Greengrass's new drama came with a steel crown that had been bent out of shape on day one.
In brief
Playing a teenage king in Paul Greengrass's new drama came with a steel crown that had been bent out of shape on day one. The glamour shot hides the grind: Norman wore a broken steel crown every shooting day and went home with a headache. Originally reported by Variety.
A teenager plays a king
Woody Norman, now 17, stars as the 14-year-old King Richard II in The Uprising, Paul Greengrass's historical fiction drama for Focus Features.
The crown broke immediately
Production had exactly one crown for him. It got damaged on the first day of filming and never sat right again.
“So it didn't fit my head”
Steel against his head
The bent metal pressed into his skull through every take. No amount of adjustment fixed the shape.
“It was steel against my head.”
Foam didn't fix it
The crew padded the inside and kept shooting anyway. Norman finished each day with a splitting headache.
“We had put foam in it, but it didn't work.”
Telling it from a hotel room
He recounted the whole ordeal over Zoom from Los Angeles, a few hours before the film premiered at the DGA in West Hollywood.
At a glance
The glamour shot hides the grind: Norman wore a broken steel crown every shooting day and went home with a headache.
