Cary Elwes Shares Emotional Journey of Filming New Movie After His House Burned Down: 'Life Is a Rollercoaster' (Exclusive)
- - Cary Elwes Shares Emotional Journey of Filming New Movie After His House Burned Down: 'Life Is a Rollercoaster' (Exclusive)
Eric AnderssonJanuary 10, 2026 at 12:07 AM
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Cary Elwes on Sept. 2, 2005. -
Cary Elwes filmed his new movie Dead Man's Wire early last year, shortly after he lost his home in the California wildfires
The actor tells PEOPLE he welcomed the experience of distracting himself: “The minute I took the makeup off and the wardrobe, all I could think of is how traumatizing that whole event was. So it actually felt good to be somebody else"
Dead Man's Wire is in select theaters now before expanding on Friday, Jan. 16
Cary Elwes hoped to hear “As you wish” — or something similar to his famous line from The Princess Bride.
When the English actor learned his older brother Cassian, an agent turned producer, was making a new movie, Dead Man’s Wire, with Oscar-nominated Good Will Hunting director Gus Van Sant, “I said, ‘Cass, you got to let me meet with Gus,’ ” Elwes recalls to PEOPLE.
The brothers are close (“We always tease each other”), but Cassian said “No.”
Cassian, who used to represent Van Sant, didn’t want to put his former client in an awkward spot. Elwes pushed: “I said, ‘He’s not going to quit the movie because you asked if your brother could meet with him. If he says no, I’ll accept that, and we’ll move on.’ ”
About a week later Elwes heard from Cassian: “ ‘I spoke to Gus, and turns out he’s a big fan of your work.’ ”
Monica Schipper/Getty
Cary Elwes on Jan. 7, 20206.
Is there anyone who isn’t? Ever since Elwes, 63, flashed his blue eyes onscreen as hero Westley in the 1987 fantasy-adventure movie The Princess Bride, he’s had audiences hooked.
“I hit the jackpot with that movie,” says Elwes, who has proved he’s adept in many genres, including comedy (1993’s Robin Hood: Men in Tights), horror (2004’s Saw) and sci-fi (season 3 of Stranger Things in 2019).
“I’m the living embodiment of everything I dreamt about lying in bed as a little 6-year-old kid going, ‘I hope I get to do this one day,’ ” says the London native, the youngest of three boys born to interior designer Tessa Kennedy and painter Dominick Elwes. “You have no idea how much I’ve manifested this.”
In Dead Man’s Wire, a true-crime drama, he plays Det. Michael Grable, an Indianapolis police officer who tries to deescalate a frightening hostage situation when a disgruntled landowner (Bill Skarsgård) kidnaps the son (Dacre Montgomery) of a mortgage lender (Al Pacino) he thinks cheated him.
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Cary Elwes in 'Dead Man's Wire.'
Van Sant was impressed by Elwes’s preparation and physical transformation, with his shaggy hair and bushy beard. “He was quite a sight, not looking at all like Westley in The Princess Bride,” he says.
But tragedy struck shortly before Elwes began filming the movie last January when the home he shared with his wife of 25 years, Lisa Marie, 54, and their daughter Dominique, 18, was destroyed in the California wildfires.
He documented his evacuation on Instagram at the time, with video showing the flames frighteningly close. Clothes, furniture and personal items were all gone. “We had nothing,” says Elwes, who recalls the kindness of locals.
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Lisa Marie Elwes/Instagram
Cary Elwes, Lisa Marie Elwes and their daughter Dominique in a 2022 Instagram post.
“They were sending us places to get clothes to put on our backs. When you have that outpouring of support and you feel that generosity, it’s powerful.”
Elwes then headed to the Dead Man’s Wire set in Louisville, where getting lost in a character so soon after the shocking loss was a reprieve, he says. “The minute I took the makeup off and the wardrobe, all I could think of is how traumatizing that whole event was. So it actually felt good to be somebody else.”
He looks back on the “horrible” ordeal through a positive lens. “It definitely shaped me, but I won’t let it define me. I think I’m a better person for it. I do believe that I’m not just going to rebuild a house,” says Elwes, who’s now living in a temporary spot. “I’m going to rebuild me. I got two for one.”
Looking back on the past 12 months — which also included his 25th wedding anniversary and his daughter’s high school graduation — Elwes says, “Life is a roller coaster.”
It’s a sentiment he said he expressed to his wife when they met in 1991 at the Malibu Chili Cook-Off, a festival with carnival rides and live music.
“We went on one of those rides together. And I told her right after, I said, "This is pretty much how it's going to be. It's going to be a crazy ride.”
Dead Man’s Wire is playing in select theaters now before going wider on Friday, Jan. 16.
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
