'Prince Humperdinck' speaks before Princess Bride stars arrive in Calgary

Several actors from the beloved Princess Bride movie are coming to Calgary.

The 1987 film tells the story of a princess forced to marry a prince after her true love disappears — and her fight to get back to him.

Actors like Chris Sarandon, Cary Elwes and Wallace Shawn will all attend next week's Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo, which runs April 26 to 29.

Sarandon, who appeared as the evil Prince Humperdinck in the film, spoke with the Calgary Eyeopener ahead of the event.

Here's part of his conversation with CBC Radio host David Gray.

Q: It's more than 30 years old now. Why do you think it's considered such a classic?

A: Oh, golly. There's so many things about it that are appealing to so many different varieties of our world population. It's an adventure. It's a romance. It's a gentle and sweet send up of all the genres that it encompasses. 

It has something that I think not all screenplays have.

That is, the writing comes from a real deep and abiding love by the writer, William Goldman. He wrote a number of great screenplays but this was the one that was closest to his heart.

He wrote it for his children, and his emotional involvement in it as he wrote it, I think, is very clear.

It comes through in the movie because we never make fun of anything. He doesn't make fun of the genres. He has fun with them at times and his wit is, I think, extraordinary at times.

It's something that people discover when they're younger. They watch it when they're older, they want their children to appreciate the same things they did and it's become multi-generational.

Q: You played Prince Humperdinck, the evil prince who wants to marry Princess Buttercup. What did that role mean for your career?

A: I don't think it really had an impact on my career at the time, because the move itself was not a big hit. It did reasonably well, but I think it had a marketing problem in that the studio who distributed didn't really know what they had.

So the movie itself has become this kind of extraordinary, cross-cultural, international favourite over a long period of time.

Movies don't tend to have an effect on one's career unless they're big hits at the time they came out.

Q: You've done other comic expos with cast members of the Princess Bride. What did people want to know when you get together? 

A: Mostly they want to hear stories, which is heartening in a way, because that's what we are; we're storytellers.

They want to hear not only what the story is of the making of the movie, but they want to hear stories about Andre the Giant.

They want to hear stories about what happened to Wally Shawn when he was working on the film, what happened to Cary Elwes, what happened to me, what happened to Chris Guest, to Mandy Patinkin.

First of all, the reality was we had a great time shooting. I think that comes across on screen, as well, that there was a joy in the realization of this, which doesn't often happen when you're shooting movies.

Often they're tough, they're a grind. This one wasn't a grind.

We spent almost all of our time together on location the first half of the shooting up in Sheffield in England in a small hotel.

We all ate together. We all hung out together. We went out together. We went to the set together. So it was a real kind of bonding experience.

Listen to the full interview with Chris Sarandon:

Also there were a lot of laughs: Chris Guess challenging me to do rhyming puns — and you know, daunting at times when you're with comic geniuses like Chris and Rob Reiner.

But all in all, it was a really lovely experience, and we get together now even.

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With files from the Calgary Eyeopener.