50 Fun Facts About Labyrinth

Who directed Labyrinth?

Jim Henson. The Muppets' creator watched it take barely half its budget in American cinemas, and it proved to be the last feature film he directed.

Which member of Monty Python wrote the screenplay for Labyrinth?

Terry Jones. He received the only screenplay credit, yet he clashed with the director over the story and later said the finished film never felt much like his own.

Who plays Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth?

David Bowie. He took the part because the script made him laugh and he liked the idea of setting it to music, and he ended up writing five songs for the film.

In Labyrinth, which complaint of Sarah's makes Jareth wonder 'what your basis for comparison is'?

It's not fair. The labyrinth agrees with her: when she says it at a dead end, the door guards laugh and reply, 'That's right, it's not fair, but that's only half of it.'

In Labyrinth, Hoggle explains that an oubliette is a place where people are put to be what?

Forgotten. The word is a real one: a dungeon whose only opening is in the ceiling, named from the French verb oublier, to forget.

In Labyrinth, how long does Jareth give Sarah to solve the labyrinth?

13 hours. She does not even get all of them: when she boasts that the labyrinth is 'a piece of cake', he turns the clock forward and takes some away.

In Labyrinth, what is the name of Sarah's treasured teddy bear, given to Toby?

Lancelot. She starts the film furious that the bear has been given to her baby brother, and ends it by handing it to him herself.

In Labyrinth, what kind of creature does Jareth call Hoggle?

A dwarf. 'The dwarf' is about the politest thing Jareth calls him: he keeps getting the name wrong, trying Hedgewart, Higgle and Hogbrain.

In Labyrinth, what does Jareth order Hoggle to give Sarah?

An enchanted peach. One bite and she forgets everything, drifting into a dream of a masked ball while her time runs out.

In Labyrinth, what is the name of the flatulent swamp that Sarah has to cross?

The Bog of Eternal Stench. Set one foot in it, Hoggle warns Sarah, and you will smell bad for the rest of your life, because the stink never washes off.

In Labyrinth, Sir Didymus is what kind of animal?

A fox terrier. The tiny knight fears nothing and rides into battle on a sheepdog who is as cowardly as he is brave, and who keeps turning tail.

In Labyrinth, what is Ludo's special ability?

Summoning rocks. When he howls, boulders roll to his call: they become stepping stones for Sarah when a bridge gives way, and later scatter the goblin army.

Which artist's work inspired the staircase set in Labyrinth's climax?

M. C. Escher. Sarah chases Toby across stairs that run sideways and upside down and has to jump off them to reach him, and the end credits thank the artist's estate.

In Labyrinth, what is the final line Sarah must remember to defeat Jareth?

You have no power over me. It ends a speech from her book that she can never finish, and it comes back just as Jareth offers to be her slave if she will only fear him, love him and obey.

In Labyrinth, into which animal does Jareth transform?

A barn owl. One is already watching Sarah rehearse in the park before she ever makes her wish, and at the end it watches her party through the window, then flies off.

Who designed Labyrinth's creatures?

Brian Froud. The screenwriter built whole scenes around his goblin sketches, and the artist supplied one more cast member: his baby son, Toby, plays the stolen child.

In Labyrinth, which small creature invites Sarah to 'come inside and meet the missus'?

A worm. It shows Sarah a hidden opening in the wall, then kindly warns her off the turning that leads straight to the castle, never guessing that is where she wants to go.

Which earlier film did Labyrinth's director and creature designer make together?

The Dark Crystal. It had no human characters at all and came out heavier than its makers meant, so their next fantasy got two human leads and far more comedy.

In Labyrinth, which creatures is Hoggle spraying like garden pests when Sarah first meets him?

Fairies. Sarah feels sorry for one and it promptly bites her: she had assumed they did nice things, like granting wishes.

In Labyrinth, Sarah falls down a shaft whose walls are made of what?

Hands. They catch her, arrange themselves into talking faces and ask whether she wants to go up or down; she picks down, and they drop her into a dungeon.

In Labyrinth, one door leads to the castle, the other to what?

Certain death. One guard always lies and one always tells the truth, so Sarah asks one what the other would say, picks her door with confidence, and falls straight down a hole.

In Labyrinth, what does Sarah trade to Hoggle for his help through the maze?

A plastic bracelet. Hoggle hoards jewellery, so the cheap trinket buys his help, until Jareth spots 'that plastic thing' on his wrist and works out whose side he is on.

In Labyrinth, what do the wild, dancing Fireys try to take off Sarah?

Her head. The Fireys pull off their own heads and limbs for fun and want hers to come off too; when she throws their heads away, they protest that it is against the rules.

In Labyrinth, which talking animal does the old Wiseman wear as a hat?

A bird. It heckles every piece of wisdom the old man offers, asks Sarah for a contribution once he nods off, and calls her and Hoggle 'suckers' as they walk away.

Which Star Wars performers appear among Labyrinth's Goblin Corps?

Kenny Baker and Warwick Davis, the men inside R2-D2 and Wicket the Ewok. Davis later founded an agency for short actors with another of the Goblin Corps, Peter Burroughs, who had become his father-in-law.

In Labyrinth, where was the juggler standing while he spun Jareth's crystal balls?

Behind the actor. Juggler Michael Moschen reached round to roll Jareth's crystals for him, working entirely by feel because he could not see them.

In Greek myth, on which island did King Minos keep the Minotaur in its Labyrinth?

Crete. When Arthur Evans dug up the sprawling palace of Knossos there from 1900, he called the lost civilisation he found 'Minoan', after the king in the story.

Which Labyrinth song do the Fireys sing as they dance around Sarah?

Chilly Down. The Fireys' voice actors sing it in place of the film's star, whose own demo went unheard for thirty years until one of those actors, Danny John-Jules, released it in 2016.

Which Last of the Mohicans composer wrote Labyrinth's score?

Trevor Jones. He had resolved to write music for films as a small boy, and here he scored everything around the star's five songs.

Which children's author does Labyrinth thank in its end credits for its debt to his books?

Maurice Sendak. In his Outside Over There, goblins steal a baby while the sister minding her is not paying attention, and a copy sits in Sarah's bedroom beside Where the Wild Things Are.

Labyrinth's 'You remind me of the babe' routine comes from a 1947 comedy starring whom?

Cary Grant and Shirley Temple. In The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer the pair chant 'You remind me of a man.' 'What man?' 'The man with the power', and Jareth's version just swaps in a babe and voodoo.

Most of Labyrinth was shot at which studios near London?

Elstree. The whole of its Stage 6 was turned into Goblin City, a town of crooked cobbled streets built so that an army of puppets could lose a battle in it.

Which royals attended Labyrinth's London Film Festival premiere in December 1986?

Charles and Diana. The Prince and Princess of Wales were met by a guest nobody had to brief on etiquette: a life-size Ludo, the film's shaggy giant.

Which publisher released the manga-style comic sequel Return to Labyrinth?

Tokyopop. Its sequel picks the story up with Toby grown into a teenager, and was planned as three volumes before the publisher stretched it to four.

Labyrinth's Jennifer Connelly later won an Oscar for playing whom?

Alicia Nash in A Beautiful Mind. The real Alicia divorced John Nash in 1963, took him back in as a boarder, and remarried him in 2001, the year the film came out.

Labyrinth's concept designer said Jareth was partly inspired by which brooding literary figures?

Heathcliff and Rochester. The Goblin King was designed as Sarah's own daydream, so his costume mixes the Brontës' dangerous romantics with a biker's leather jacket and a ballet dancer's tights.

In Greek myth, who built the original Labyrinth for King Minos?

Daedalus. When he later fell out with the king, he built wings held together with wax so that he and his son Icarus could fly away, and the boy flew too near the sun.

What did the Minotaur have the head of?

A bull. In the usual telling the monster's mother was the king's own queen, made to fall in love with a bull that her husband had vowed to sacrifice to Poseidon and then kept.

Who gave Theseus the thread that let him escape the Labyrinth?

Ariadne. She betrayed her own father, King Minos, to save him, and in the best-known version he repaid her by sailing away while she slept on the island of Naxos.

In Greek myth, which city had to send seven youths and seven maidens to feed the Minotaur?

Athens. The tribute was the price of the death of King Minos's son there, and it ended when the Athenian prince Theseus sailed as one of the fourteen and killed the monster.

In specialist usage, how does a labyrinth differ from a maze?

It has a single path. A maze is a puzzle of branches and dead ends, while a true labyrinth winds one route to the centre, so the Minotaur's lair, which took a thread to escape, was strictly a maze.

Which French cathedral has a famous walkable labyrinth in the floor of its nave?

Chartres. Laid in the early 1200s, it spends most of the week hidden under chairs, which are cleared on Fridays from Lent to All Saints' Day so that pilgrims can walk it.

Which royal palace beside the Thames has Britain's oldest surviving hedge maze?

Hampton Court. William III had the maze planted, and in the novel Three Men in a Boat the boastful Harris calls it too simple to bother with, then gets a whole crowd lost inside it.

Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth is set in the years after which country's civil war?

Spain. Franco has won, and while young Ofelia follows a faun into an overgrown labyrinth, her stepfather, an army captain, hunts the last rebels hiding in the hills.

Which famous film-maker was Labyrinth's executive producer and helped shape its final cut?

George Lucas. He came in after the director's first cut and tightened it toward action, and the director then loosened it again with slower, more lyrical pauses, the two trading passes.

In Labyrinth, what is the name of Sarah's sheepdog, seen with her in the park at the start?

Merlin. Inside the labyrinth he has a double, Sir Didymus's cowardly steed Ambrosius, and the two names belong together: in some tellings the wizard of legend is Merlin Ambrosius.

At the end of Labyrinth, where does Sarah see Hoggle, Ludo and Sir Didymus again?

In her mirror. Safely home, Sarah admits that she still needs her friends now and then, and at once the whole cast of the labyrinth piles into her bedroom for a party.

Which British actress auditioned for Labyrinth's Sarah but was passed over in favour of an American?

Helena Bonham Carter. She read for the part in Britain and made the shortlist, but the makers decided Sarah ought to be American and moved their monthly auditions to the US.

Which Star Trek actress choreographed Labyrinth, credited under her first name, Cheryl?

Gates McFadden. She took the job because she had been promised a part as Sarah's mother as well, but once she reached London the British actors' union refused to let her act.

Which comedy writer polished Labyrinth's script just before filming?

Elaine May. Her uncredited polish made the characters more human, and it pleased the director so much that shooting began with her material in the script.