The Tenth Annual Mutant Awards: 2007

Kenny Baker as R2D2

According to the Screen Actors Guild, no actor may be nominated more than once for any given category during each Academy Awards season. We here at the Mutant Reviewers From Hell humbly submit this as just one more reason that Hollywood can take a long walk off a short tree and get out of here. We nominated Warwick Davis THREE TIMES this year! Three! He, uh, didn’t actually win, but three darn times and he deserved each one of them.

Like each of our nominees, Warwick was given the opportunity to take a part that could have been a one-note throwaway role and transform it into a performance that is truly unforgettable. That’s no mean feat for your average-sized actor, let alone ones that are perennially consigned to furry masks, facepaint, and unwieldy prosthetics (don’t even get me started on dressing in red, talking backwards, and slow dancing to creepy jazz music).

At the back of the pack for Biggest Little Person Role is the inimitable Billy Barty as Gwildor. Gwildor displayed tremendous bravery in Masters of the Universe when he faced the likes of Skeletor, Evil-Lyn, and The Lundgren School of Acting, but held the cosmic key to only 0.4% of the voters’ hearts at the polls. Despite heavy campaigning in locales like ‘Tha Hood’ and ‘Space,’ Warwick Davis’ first nomination as the bloodthirsty Leprechaun won only 4.0%, though he fared slightly better in an ensemble, accompanied by the entire Ewok nation in Return of the Jedi (4.4%). Hans, Frieda, and the cast of Freaks convinced 6.9% of you to be One of Them, while the kleptomaniacal dwarves of Time Bandits and the loveably psychotic Mini-Me each made off with a healthy 12.5% of the vote. Hoggle was rewarded with third place (13.9%) for standing up to The Goblin King and his Area in Labyrinth, just behind Warwick’s final nomination in his career-defining performance as Willow Ulfgood (21.8%) in The Little Nelwyn That Could. Er, Willow.

They’re all excellent nominees and worthy contenders, but in the end, there can be only one king of the Mutie Mountain. With 23.8% of the vote, You have chosen our winner for The 2007 AMA Biggest Little Person Award: Kenny Baker, whose performances as R2D2 in all six of the Star Wars films imbued more feeling and character in a little silver trashcan than the entirety of Industrial Light and Magic managed to pump out in seven hours of prequel filmage. Stand tall, Kenny, and be recognized!

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