Director Sacha Gervasi‘s planned biopic about tragic Fantasy Island star Herve Villechaize is a bittersweet project for the filmmaker because it is based on a lengthy interview he conducted with the actor a week before his death.

Sacha Gervasi

Picture: Sacha Gervasi The premiere of ‘Hitchcock’ at the BFI Southbank – Arrivals London, England – 09.12.12

Fellow dwarf star Peter Dinklage, who is developing the film with Gervasi and is slated to play Villechaize, reveals his moviemaker friend was dispatched to chat with the actor for a magazine article, and came away from the experience sure he had just spoken to a tortured soul.

Dinklage tells Playboy magazine, “He (Villechaize) was quite outrageous. My friend, the movie director Sacha Gervasi, has been working on the script for a while, basing it on an interview with Herve he did when he was a journalist.
“At one point Herve pulled a knife on Sacha. He was like a pirate, an incredible character. Herve killed himself about a week later, so Sacha realised the interview was probably a suicide note.
“It’s a terribly sad tale, but there’s something fun about getting into the skin of a guy like that, pretending to be him for a few months.”
Villechaize, who also appeared in Bond film The Man With the Golden Gun, died in 1993, aged 50.
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