Yahoo Movies Joanne Whalley says her favorite line of dialogue ever in new Willow series
Joanne Whalley is eager to laugh at her past.
The actress, who starred as Sorsha in 1988's Willow and returns as an older, queenly version of the character in the new Disney+ series, is delighted to be back in the fantasy world. But it does come with some baggage, given that she met ex-husband and father of her children, Val Kilmer, on the set of the film.
Kilmer and Whalley played unlikely lovers, Madmartigan and Sorsha, in the original movie — and now, in the series, Sorsha is queen and Madmartigan is god knows where. That doesn't mean Kilmer and his character's presence aren't felt. The protagonists of the new series are Madmartigan and Sorsha's children, Kit (Ruby Cruz) and Arik (Dempsey Bryk), and Kit is determined to learn what has happened to her father.
To remind viewers of where we last left Sorsha and Madmartigan (and what's happened in the intervening years), Sorsha gives viewers some opening narration, and in that narration is Whalley's favorite piece of dialogue she's ever been asked to utter. Explaining her relationship with Madmartigan, who she calls an impossibly conceited rogue, she says, "Madmartigan was the man I'd marry. What can I say? I was young."
Meta much?
"She couldn't keep a straight face," showrunner Jonathan Kasdan says of recording the line with Whalley. "She kept saying to me, 'This is my favorite thing I've ever had to say.' I was intimidated to meet her, and then she's just the loveliest."
Lucasfilm
Kasdan says he was also eager to give Whalley more robust material to play with than the original film. "When you look at the movie, Joanne is given relatively little to do and does so much with it," he reflects, adding that it was a no-brainer to make Sorsha and Madmartigan parents. "It's an underwritten part a little bit, but she was so dynamic and such a powerful presence. And the chemistry between her and Val was so electric that they had to have the whole family together."
For her part, Whalley is just happy to be back in a role that gives her so much to play with. "What I loved about her in the beginning is that she was a combination of contradictions, as we all are, in that she was quite fierce and capable and strong and vulnerable and romantic," Whalley previously told EW. "We're whole human beings. Sorsha as an older person is still a combination of those things. Now, she has children of her own, and has responsibilities that have fallen to her in the way of inheriting her mother's title and all that goes with it. [She has a] sense of social responsibility and leadership and justice, but she's still a mum who's a bit corny sometimes. She's still got a romantic side."
Willow is now streaming on Disney+.
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