Birth of the movie

Actors

"For casting the lead role of Ibn, we had Antonio Banderas in mind from the start," says McTiernan. "He is a versatile and very involving actor, and I think he is someone whom audience can enjoy and believe in as they take this extraordinary adventure with him."

"I liked the mystery in the story," says Antonio Banderas, discussing his attraction to the project. "These guys are fighting against an enemy and through circumstances that puts them together as one group. They are from different races and have different opinions about life, and I think that is one of the greatest themes that comes through in the story. I also liked the fact that this is an action movie, and that, even within the action, the story deals with concepts of life and friendship that are part of our everyday lives.

"Even though Ibn is from a rich family, he is still street smart," notes Banderas of his character. "But at the beginning, he is also an immature man and he is always upset with everything, over-reacting to circumstances. When he meets up with these warriors he later has a humbling look at himself. The journey becomes an initiation process for Ibn into being a man and into being a better person. I think itТs good for him and makes for an interesting story as well."

During shooting "The 13th Warrior" On the right - director
and producer John McTiernan

Accompanying Ibn on his journey into the wilderness is his manservant, Melchisidek. For the significant role, the filmmakers cast the legendary Omar Sharif, who shot to international attention as a film star, winning a Golden Globe Award when he played Ibn el Kharish, Peter OТTooleТs trusted friend in David LeanТs epic "Lawrence of Arabia." Like Sharif, Banderas had starred in 30 films in his native country before his breakthrough role captured the attention of film audiences worldwide.

"When I see Antonio, it is sort of like watching my life starting again, and it makes me smile," notes Sharif. "ItТs rejuvenating, in a way, and I think he feels much as I did at his age. Being a person who has an accent and who is becoming a big star in films, we had these things in common. And even though we worked together for only a short time, we were very comfortable with each other."

Speaking about his attraction to the brief but significant role of Melchisidek, Sharif says, "I attach more importance to being in a good film, even playing a small role, rather than being in a bad film with a wonderful role. This is an interesting story with some excellent filmmakers bringing it to life. Michael Crichton and John McTiernan and Antonio Banderas are all tremendous to work with.

"Melchisidek is a gentlemanТs gentleman," explains Sharif. "He is IbnТs manservant and mentor, a noble man and a devoted old teacher of this rather impulsive young hero. He is also someone of culture, who speaks several languages and who has a knowledge of the world, and he provides a very important link between Ibn and the warriors as they first meet. Ibn thinks they are strange and Melchisidek responds, СThatТs the way they are, the world is made of all sorts of people.Т"

Sharif himself is multilingual, and had to call upon his grasp of Greek and Latin for the role. Melchisidek and Ibn search for a way to communicate with the warriors, fishing for a language that they have in common, eventually discovering that Melchisidek and Herger the Joyous, played by Dennis Storhoi, both speak some Latin.

"Our approach to casting the warriors was that we wanted to find as many Scandinavian actors as possible," explains McTiernan. "Two thirds of our cast are actually from Sweden or Denmark or Norway, and, as with most all Scandinavians, they all speak English. We wanted to find powerfully skilled actors with basically contemporary attitudes. We were fortunate to find such extraordinary actors, most of them classically trained.

"The other criteria for our search was that we wanted to find big and tall men for these roles," McTiernan continues. "I think the average height for the twelve guys is about 6 foot, 6 inches tall. Two of our British Shakespearean actors are 6 foot, 5 inches tall. Antonio is not a small man, but we wanted him to seem small around all of the other people."

"It was like I was working with the Los Angeles Lakers," remarks Antonio Banderas, with a smile. "ItТs a good thing I donТt have a complex about my height, because even my horse was little compared with theirs. I have never seen such big horses."

The truly international cast, boasting some of the finest actors from North America, the Middle East and all parts of Europe, came together in the united effort to bring this epic adventure to life.

In order to portray skilled warriors, the actors worked together for four solid weeks of training in swordsmanship and horseback riding, learning to handle and work with the significantly larger-than-normal horses McTiernan chose for the warriors to ride. Actors who were not previously familiar with Latin or Norwegian also spent hours learning and honing the language and accents needed to portray a unified group of countrymen.

John McTiernan and Dennis Storhoi (Herger)

"It was fortunate that the actors were able to spend time together during pre-production," observes Michael Crichton. "The activities helped them to form into a group before we even began filming."

"We also found a lot of Nordic people in British Columbia who were willing to be background players, or extras, in the film," notes McTiernan. "Though most of them had never been extras before, they were quite excited about it. I was thrilled that they were such professional, interesting and nice people. They were a very high caliber of background players, and they made the atmosphere on set better as well."

"We had the best group of extras on this film," notes make-up designer Jeff Dawn. "They were so eager to work and so excited to get dirty every day. They seemed to love it, actually. People from a thousand years ago were probably very clean, but the notion is that everyone was dirty ... so for the big crowd scenes we dirtied everyone up and goofed up their hair. There are actually products, such as Clean-DirtЃ, to do this sort of thing," says Dawn, adding with a smile, "Generally people donТt get as upset when you come at them with something called Clean-DirtЃ."