Veteran British actress Miriam Margolyes is infamous for her blunt honesty, cutting through social politeness to tell it how it is. The Harry Potter actress has become something of a British national treasure. However, despite her reputation, even Miriam Margolyes can be shocked, like when Hollywood legend and ex-governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger deliberately farted in her face.
The unlikely pairing of Schwarzenegger and Margolyes happened back in 1999. The two of them acted together in End of Days, one of an endless stream of millennial apocalypse tie-ins. The film saw Schwarzenegger battling Satan and his henchwoman, Mabel, played by Margolyes.
“I didn’t like the wrestler, you know, from Austria,” Margolyes told Australia’s I’ve Got News For You podcast. “He’s a Republican, which I don’t like, and he was actually quite rude. He farted in my face.”
Now, I fart. Of course, I do, but I don’t fart in people’s faces. He did it deliberately, right in my face. I can’t remember the date, but it was during the filming of End of Days in Los Angeles.
Unfortunately for anyone eager to see the spectacle, Margolyes confirms that none of Arnie’s flatulence made it onto film. “I was playing Satan’s sister [Mabel], and he was killing me, so he had me in a position where I couldn’t escape, lying on the floor, and he just farted. It wasn’t on film, it was in one of the pauses [between takes], but I haven’t forgiven him for it.”
Margolyes offers no other information on the fart nor whether Schwarzenegger apologized. However, to remember the event 23 years later, we can only imagine said flatus was suitably apocalyptic.
Miriam Margolyes is “perfectly happy” to be known as Professor Sprout from Harry Potter
Talking later in the show about the other kind of expelliarmus, Margolyes said her time working on the Harry Potter franchise as Professor Sprout led to “a new, young audience of people” who knew her work and career.
But a lot of folk remember me from Blackadder — other people saw me in Wicked, Romeo + Juliet, [and] Babe. You know, I’ve done a lot of really interesting things in my life, so I don’t feel that I’ve been put in a bag that’s only Professor Sprout. But if I have, I’m perfectly happy with that. It’s perfectly nice to be part of something that so many millions of people have enjoyed.
Margolyes is still working today, and will be appearing in an animated series based on the movie Babe called Rex & Fly’s Doggy Penthouse.
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