Character actor, playwright and essayist Wallace Shawn is one of stage and screen’s greatest treasures. From “The Princess Bride” to “Uncle Vanya” to “My Dinner with Andre,” Shawn is a living legend. But you don’t know everything about him, because here’s seven mind-boggling facts about him that we made up because there are no actual consequences in life!
Seriously, you can pretty much do anything you want, because in the long run, everyone dies and everything disappears.
Fact #1: For his portrayal of scheming, weaselly mastermind Vizzini in the beloved adventure comedy “The Princess Bride,” Shawn really developed an immunity to iocaine powder, the deadly poison used as stakes for Princess Buttercup’s life! But that’s not actually true. Iocaine powder is completely fictional, just like the idea of anything mattering in the long run.
Fact #2: Shawn has a luscious, full head of auburn locks and in his youth, was known at Club 51 as “the Cinnamon Stallion.” He wears a custom bald cap in all his roles, to keep with his image as a mild-mannered intellectual type. See, everything is fake. From this fact to the promises your lover made that night. Nothing is real, so everything is permitted.
Fact #3: He banged your mom. That’s right, the author of controversial play “Marie and Bruce” took your mom to pound town, and your dad watched. And everyone loved it. All untrue, and no consequences. Even if it had happened, nothing in this cold clockwork of a universe would have changed. Not them. Not you. Not the way a father might walk out on a family, never to return.
Fact #4: All actors have a dream role, and Shawn is no exception! In many interviews, he’s said he would love to play Dr Zaius in Planet of the Apes, but it’s impossible because it takes place hundreds of years in the future. Did you think that was true? After all this? You fool. Wallace Shawn understands how stories work, just like we all should understand the only true resolution to anything is the heat death of the universe.
Fact #5: Wallace Shawn enjoys pasta carbonara! That’s right, even a big time celebrity like the principal in Clueless likes to chow down on a plate of the classic Roman pasta of guancile, pecorino, egg and pepper! This might even be true. We don’t know. It wouldn’t change anything if he did. Just like nothing was changed when you saw a nurse deliberately administer too much morphine to a patient. The world keeps spinning.
Fact #6: He honks if he’s horny! And believe us, this pro-Palestine, socialist New Yorker is leaning on that car horn 24/7, 365. It’s always the ones you least suspect, right? Again, we just made it up. Shawn could be asexual for all we know or will be wondering how we got in his head for this article. Doesn’t matter a bit either way.
Fact #7: He’s the son of the legendary editor of “The New Yorker,” William Shawn (1907-1992)! And guess what! That one is true! See, it didn’t matter if it was truth or a lie, nothing truly exists, because all things are impermanent! This entire confession of guilt has meant completely nothing.
Everything means…nothing.