Child star from “The Neverending Story” almost died during filming

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The German fantasy film “The Neverending Story” is 40 years old. To celebrate the anniversary, actor Noah Hathaway spoke about a dangerous stunt that almost cost his life.

What does Noah Hathaway say? The American actor, who took on the role of Atreyu in the cult film “The Neverending Story” at just twelve years of age, recalled a near-fatal accident during filming in an interview with indiewire.com.

According to Hathaway, German director Wolfgang Petersen was known for requiring the actors to do their own stunts. In the fantasy film, Atreyu was supposed to fall from trees, ride horses, fight his way through a swamp and defeat monsters.

Before the actual filming began, the actor continued, he undertook extensive horse riding training. And during this, he had an accident that would have repercussions well into adulthood.

Before we started filming, I was training on a horse. It got scared, ran off and jumped over a fence. I did a somersault and it fell on me and broke my back. I spent two months in a German hospital in traction before we could even shoot a scene. It was a lot, but I picked myself up and we filmed for almost a whole year.”

Noah Hathaway via indiewire.com Atreyu should be green

What other anecdotes does the actor reveal? Noah Hathaway had even more memories from the shoot:

  • Atreyu was originally supposed to have green skin, so the boy was initially painted green. Later, this was abandoned and a tanned protagonist was chosen. Noah Hathaway was therefore instructed to visit a solarium 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 out of a tree. I hurt all over.”
  • Another painful encounter was with Gmork, an evil, wolf-like creature. It is said to have weighed a few hundred pounds and was hurled at the actor with an air cannon in one scene. 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 that Hathaway lost consciousness during filming. The scene in which 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. And there was mud everywhere. When too much of it got into the actor’s mouth, he had to be pulled out of the artificial swamp while unconscious.

    • Looking back, Noah Hathaway comments on the filming as follows: “It was totally crazy. There is no way you could get away with something like that today.” Pretty crazy, isn’t it? Here is another anecdote from an actor: The star of Gladiator had a problem 3 months before filming: He was bald and weighed too much

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