The athletes who became Olympians because of ‘Star Wars’

PARIS—Every four years, when people watching the Olympics find themselves oddly transfixed by fencing, they tend to have a few questions.

What just happened? Who got that point? Why is everyone always screaming like complete maniacs?

And how does anyone in the U.S. become an Olympian in such an obscure sport?

For most fencers on Team USA, the answer is that they were following their parents and older siblings. Others learned what fencing was when they turned on their TVs and became transfixed by watching people stab each other.

But a surprising number of the fencers in Paris actually discovered the sport a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

They started fencing because of “Star Wars.”

From the moment they saw Luke Skywalker duel with Darth Vader, they knew they wanted to wield lightsabers. Since they couldn’t play with laser swords, they settled for real ones instead.

American fencer Maia Chamberlain’s first experience with the sport that would take her from California to Princeton and now on to Paris was battling her father with toy lightsabers. She always took the green one to be like Luke.

When it was time for her to pick a fencing weapon, she traded her lightsaber for an actual saber.

U.S. fencer Mitchell Saron has a similar origin story. After seeing “Revenge of the Sith,” he begged his parents to buy him toy swords. When his mother finally dragged him to a New Jersey fencing club, he learned the rules of foil, epee and saber—and picked his future weapon.

“Saber is the one where you can slash,” Saron said. “I saw the other two where you have to poke, and I said, ‘I can’t do those. They’re not like ‘Star Wars.’”

As it turns out, few people in the history of American fencing are more influential than George Lucas, since college coaches say that new “Star Wars” movies always lead to a surge in youth participation.

In other sports at the Olympics, this would sound totally crazy, like Stephen Curry taking up basketball because he loved “Space Jam.” But in fencing, it’s normal. Even people at the highest levels of the sport admit they were hooked because they thought fencing looked cool in movies and TV shows. If they’re not at the Olympics because of a Hollywood sword fight, they know someone who is.

In fact, when the actor Mandy Patinkin agreed to play a Spanish fencer in the beloved 1987 movie “The Princess Bride,” he knew that he would have to land his iconic line: “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” What he didn’t know was that his character was also preparing several generations of Americans to fence.

The other movies that shaped today’s Olympians include “Pirates of the Caribbean,” the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and “The Parent Trap.” There is one Team USA athlete who was introduced to fencing by a Nickelodeon show. And there’s not one but two French men who started fencing to be like Zorro.

But there has never been a movie that introduced as many people to fencing as “Star Wars.”

In the original movies, the lightsaber battles were choreographed and coordinated by an Olympic gold medalist, who also played another role: He was Darth Vader’s stunt double.

After competing for Great Britain at the 1952 Olympics, Bob Anderson became the man who everyone in Hollywood called when they needed help with a fight scene. He was the Yoda of fencing. The late sword master consulted with everyone from Sean Connery to the swashbuckling Errol Flynn and on basically every classic film involving sharp blades.

But even Anderson once said his pièce de résistance was “The Princess Bride.” It had to be. The movie’s screenplay demanded nothing less than the greatest sword fight in history.

And the star of the movie wasn’t sure that he could live up to that billing.

“I knew I could run through Fire Swamps, wrestle Rodents of Unusual Size, and maybe even fight a giant,” Cary Elwes wrote in his memoir. “But when it came to sword fighting? I have to admit that I simply had no idea of the complexity of the preparation that would be required to perform it adequately.”

This fencing match for the ages between Westley (Elwes) and Inigo Montoya (Patinkin) takes place on the Cliffs of Insanity. They begin the scene fencing left-handed. Then they both reveal they’re secretly right-handed. Which meant the actors needed to learn how to fence with both hands—while climbing up and down a flight of stairs.

It was important to director Rob Reiner that the actors handle their own stunts. And as he read William Goldman’s classic screenplay, Patinkin realized exactly what that would entail.

“I have to become the world’s greatest fencer,” he thought.

Becoming the world’s greatest fencer would require Olympic levels of training for someone whose primary experience with swords was in a production of “Henry IV, Part I” for Shakespeare in the Park.

Before he showed up on set, Patinkin trained for months in a Broadway rehearsal space with Yale fencing coach Henry Hartunian, who taught him the basics of the sport. “Like ballet,” he said. Patinkin is naturally right-handed, but to prepare him for the role, Hartunian had the brilliant idea to train him as a left-handed fencer.

On set, the actors practiced for 40 hours a week, Elwes wrote, taking turns with Anderson on their lunch breaks and practically every second they weren’t shooting a scene. They filmed their epic fight scene at the very end of the shoot. By then, Patinkin had been fencing for about eight months.

The training was so intense that Patinkin later developed tennis elbow. He couldn’t figure out how until the doctor asked: Have you ever done any sudden athletic activity?

“Then it dawned on me,” Patinkin said. “Out of nowhere, I fenced!”

These days, Hollywood’s top fencing coach is Tim Weske, who has trained Sandra Bullock, Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman and worked on dozens of movies and shows.

But he never could have predicted the job that would one day produce an Olympian.

“There’s somebody on the Olympic team who was inspired by ‘iCarly’?” he said.

American epee fencer Hadley Husisian happened to be watching a 2008 episode of the Nickelodeon show when the elementary-schooler was captivated by an episode called “iFence.”

A few years later, after Husisian revealed a secret talent for shooting games on the boardwalk of the Jersey Shore, her mother wanted to enroll her in archery classes. When archery had a waitlist, she remembered fencing and tried it. Now she’s an Olympian.

Patinkin knows better than most people what it took for her to get to Paris. That’s because he fenced an Olympian once—and only once. When he put on the gear and took the strip with Anderson, he found out what it really means to be one of the world’s greatest fencers.

“He annihilated me instantly,” Patinkin said. “In that moment, I understood the ‘Star Wars’ movies and the phrase: Let the force be with you.”