Billy Crystal created most of Miracle Max's lines off the cuff.
Comedic actors know how to deliver lines in just the right way with just the right timing to make an audience laugh. But true comedians are often funnier when they’re allowed to go off-script and let their gift for spontaneous humor shine.
Enter Billy Crystal, whose ad-libbed scene in “The Princess Bride” was so funny it took nearly 30 hours of work to get five minutes of usable footage. Cast members of the cult classic film have shared what happened when director Rob Reiner decided to take the reins off of Crystal, telling him, “Forget the lines, just go for it,” according to actor Cary Elwes. That invitation to improvise would prove to be one of the best—and worst—decisions he could have made for the film.
In the scene, Crystal plays “Miracle Max,” a crotchety old apothecary who argues with his wife (played by Carol Kane) and brings the "mostly dead" Westley back to life with his chocolate-covered magic pill. There were lines written for his character, but he didn't need them. He could—and did—ad-lib for hours, but it proved to be a bit of a problem because the cast and crew just couldn't stop laughing.
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The sound department had to start banishing people off of the set because they were ruining takes with their giggles. Reiner himself, who has a big, boisterous laugh, was one of the first people to go because he couldn't keep it together during the filming. Mandy Patinkin, who played Inigo Montoya and wasn't able to leave, shared that he sustained his only injury in the entire making of the film during the shooting of that scene—a bruised rib from holding in laughter.
Elwes said Reiner told him he needed to lie perfectly still and hold his breath in the scene, but Crystal's "medieval Yiddish stand-up" proved too hilarious and Elwes had to be replaced with his rubber dummy for much of the shoot. Patinkin said that Reiner nearly threw up from laughing so hard, and people in the cast and crew had to bite their hands to keep quiet. Production was nearly shut down for the day and the scene became one of the most expensive scenes in the movie because it used so much film, according to InCinematic. And the vast majority of what was filmed never got seen.
"Unfortunately, there's so many spoiled—brilliantly hilarious takes that we all spoiled," said Elwes. He also wrote in his book about the movie that Crystal never said the same thing or delivered the same line twice. Crystal's improv resulted in some of the most memorable lines from the film, such as the classic, "Sonny, true love is the greatest thing in the world—except for a nice MLT–mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is nice and lean…"
Even the look of Miracle Max was from Crystal's brain child. He told his makeup artist that he wanted the character to look like a mix between Casey Stengel, former manager for the New York Yankees, and Crystal's grandmother.
Casey Stengel served as inspiration for the Miracle Max character in "The Princess Bride."Public Domain
People loved hearing about Crystal's comedic genius, wishing the footage that couldn't be used would be released.
"You can't plan a movie like The Princess Bride, when you've got the right people sometimes it just happens."
"Nothing greater as an improvising-comedian actor than hearing the words; 'Forget the lines, just go for it.'"
"Three straight days of Billy off the cuff is pure gold. I would've loved to have been on that set lmao."
"When the comedy is so good, you bruise your OWN RIB tryna hold it in."
"Release the tapes, raw and uncut. The people demand it."
We may not have access to the unseen footage of Crystal's improvised hilarity, but we can at least enjoy the scenes that did make it into the film by rewatching "The Princess Bride," which many fans do annually. The film even returned to theaters briefly for its 30th Anniversary in the fall of 2023, much to the delight of people who yearned to see it on the big screen again.
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This article originally appeared in January
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