Warwick Davis thinks Leprechaun costar Jennifer Aniston was really afraid of him in costume: ‘It was pretty intense’

Warwick Davis has only good memories of Jennifer Aniston, his costar in the 1993 horror movie Leprechaun. He suspects that she doesn't feel the same.

"She was a great actress, but whether the fear on her face was real…." Warwick told Entertainment Weekly at the Wednesday opening of Universal Epic Universe in Orlando. "I think it was at times, because it was pretty intense, that makeup and the stuff we were having to do. Having me in that getup with the nails and everything, chasing her. It's got to have been pretty terrifying."

Indeed, Davis portrayed the titular leprechaun, who was distinctly not the Lucky Charms-type nor the kind we see on St. Patrick's Day decorations, but an evil creature there to reclaim the pot of gold that's been taken from him — no matter who or what stands in his way. Aniston plays Tory, who has the misfortune of finding herself in his sights.

Panned by critics, the movie still managed to earn $8.5 million at the global box office, per Box Office Mojo. And that was quite a haul considering it had a budget of less than $1 million, according to Syfy.

The movie, one of those that's so bad it's good, became a cult classic on video and in TV reruns at the same time that Aniston became a household name on one of her next projects, Friends.

"I remember Jennifer, because I thought, 'Oh, she's definitely got something special about her.' You could tell she was gonna become a big star one day. She had that quality about her, that energetic performance."

Aniston's other pre-Friends work included TV sitcoms such as Ferris Bueller (she played Jennifer Grey's character of Jeannie Bueller in this version), Molloy (with Mayim Bialik), and Herman's Head, alongside a cast that included Hank Azaria.

For her part, Aniston famously joked in an August 2021 interview with In Style that she found the movie "embarrassing" and wasn't sure if her career would survive it.

But director Mark Jones told EW in August 2014 that she had personally told him she has affection for the movie she did with him and Davis.

"I bumped into her about three years after Friends had been on the air and she was a superstar and she came up to me and she goes, 'You know, there's been articles sometimes that I don't look at Leprechaun fondly,'" Jones said. "And she said, 'I just want to tell you I’ve been misquoted and it's not true. It was a lot of fun.' I said, 'Jennifer, if I ever have the success you have, I’m going to deny I directed Leprechaun, so don't worry about it.'"

—With reporting from Joey Nolfi