Willow's Dempsey Bryk And Ruby Cruz On Playing The Children Of Legends [Exclusive Interview]

In the new Disney+ series "Willow," time has passed and characters from the original film, Madmartigan (Val Kilmer) and Sorsha (Joanne Whalley), have taken over the kingdom and had a pair of children. These twins, Airk (Dempsey Bryk) and Kit (Ruby Cruz), are perfect amalgamations of their parents' personalities and looks, and it is incumbent on them to save the world as their parents once did.

Through the course of the series, they face many challenges, but never once do they lose sight of whose children they are. The actors bring an impressive energy to "Willow" and help ground a truly contemporary take on the tone of '80s fantasy. They're part of the winning combination that make "Willow" so fun to watch, and /Film got to speak to Dempsey Bryk and Ruby Cruz together about playing in the shadow of what came before, the pressure of the film's legacy, and more.

You're both playing children of legacy characters. How much studying did you do of the original movies or the performances of Val Kilmer and Joanne Whalley?

Cruz: Genuinely a lot.

Bryk: So much.

Cruz: Having access to such in-depth footage of our parents was really awesome. Watching their performances and learning about their characters and having the freedom to envision them as parents and envision being their child and having Madmartigan raise you was a very interesting thing to play with.

Bryk: Yeah, also the thing that I loved about your question is the other performances and the other things other than "Willow." Because that was a big part of it, just trying to get a sense of these two people's spirit and who they are. And it was really lovely, because we got to kind of artistically fall in love with both of those actors with a lot closer proximity to them than we ever had before. They just have done amazing things. And Joanne obviously we got to know and was a legitimate mom to us — she was so calming and amazing.

Cruz: Yeah, I also read Val Kilmer's book, which was really interesting.

Bryk: I bought his poetry book.

Cruz: You did?

Bryk: Yeah. I'll show it to you. It was great.

Cruz: But his book was really interesting because he talked about filming "Willow" and he talked about playing that character and what set was like...

Bryk: And the "Val" documentary. A lot of Val stuff was going on at the same thing.

Obviously "Willow" was an important pre-established property for a lot of people. Was there any pressure stepping into the world of "Willow" for either of you, especially with that sort of familial touch to the characters you're playing?

Bryk: The beautiful thing about "Willow" fans — I'll speak personally, but I think it's probably true for everyone — is that it never felt like pressure. It just felt like an opportunity. I think that maybe of all fandom — not all the fandoms, but of a lot of fandoms — I've noticed that "Willow" seems to be just very enthusiastic and loving, but a little less strict, which kind of gave us some creative leeway to say, "Okay, well, we're going to honor the original and the original characters to the best of our ability. But also we had this opportunity to add to the world to create our own thing and carve ourselves out." And I think that's what I tried to do as an actor, but also that what we tried to do as a creative team.

Cruz: Totally. I mean, definitely we want to do them justice, because it is such an iconic, beloved film. But yeah, I'm just really excited. I hope people like it.

I want to ask, filming that intro to the cast video, it seemed like Warwick is a very hilarious presence on set. How does the tenor of shooting actually match that view that they gave audiences in that teaser? Is that as far off as it might seem?

Cruz: In the meet the cast , he's exactly like that.

Bryk: Warwick is the sweetest person. So not at all like his meet the cast [persona], but that humor of just making fun of each other and being comedic? That's authentic. Laughing and all.

Cruz: He's hilarious.

Bryk: Really funny. In fact, we just found out that he's been basically, I think he's been talking s*** about us comedically in interviews and...

Cruz: Oh yeah.

Bryk: And we're over here being like, "We love Warwick!" And last night we were talking, he was like, "Yeah, I've not said one nice word about you guys." That's so funny.

Cruz: I remember he said in an interview, I saw it of him being like, "Yeah, it was really hard for the younger kids to pretend like something was behind the camera when it really wasn't. Me and Joanne really good at it, but they really struggled."

Bryk: It's so funny because it's so ... that's a comedic risk. He's a comedian in a lot of ways. And I don't think people know, unless you've maybe seen "Life's Too Short" or our meet the cast video, he's just really, really funny and risky.

"Willow" airs on Disney+ on Wednesdays, beginning November 30, 2022.