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Paris Themmen got to go to one of the most magical places in the world — Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. But the former child star says that, for a long time, the reception of 1971’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory wasn’t exactly a dream come true.
Themmen, 66, opened up about appearing as Mike Teevee in Willy Wonka in a Sept. 8 interview with Remind Magazine. “When it came out, it sort of came and went,” the former actor said of the now-classic film, starring the late Gene Wilder as the titular candy maker. “I think they made their million bucks back for the budget of the film.”
But the theatrical release wasn’t the end of the story for Willy Wonka. “They started playing it only once a year. I think it started out on Thanksgiving. It was like appointment TV,” Themmen remembered. “You had to wait, sort of like the Wizard of Oz. And right around that time, I would say that’s probably the mid-to-late ’80s, it started to become clear that it was going to have legs and continue to be popular for years.”
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Themmen also remembered filming the movie in Munich when he was 11 years old. He was filming for nine weeks. “Every day was a new adventure,” he said. “[The chocolate room] was the most impressive set. It was built by Harper Goff, who they borrowed from Disney. He also designed the Nautilus for 20,000 Leagues [Under the Sea].”
And Themmen’s shocked look at the chocolate factory was real. “I was surprised at the moment that I saw the room, although I think they may have used my second take of surprise,” he said. “But Julie — who played Veruca Salt — actually got a sneak peek before the instructions went out that we weren’t allowed to go in there and shouldn’t show the room to the kids. She actually went in and had a little picnic by the river.”
Themmen also remembered the actual candy he got to eat during production. “I ate some of the gum that I jumped up and down for father gum tree, which I guess, now that I think about it, that’s supposed to be a pun, right? A gum tree?” he said.
He continued, “I like the three-course gum in the Inventing Room that was very tasty. It was like a couple of different kinds of toffee that they squished together. I really liked that one. I ate a couple. And when I went back for like a third one, the prop guy was like, ‘No, we need some to make the movie so you can’t have any more.’ ”
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Overall, he cherished his time on set. “It was a great experience if you’re going to be in a film as an 11-year-old, I recommend that you choose Willy,” he said.
Themmen, who was born in Boston into a musical family, began acting as a child on TV. He appeared on Broadway twice, in the musicals Mame and The Rothschilds. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory was his only movie, and then he took a step back from acting to focus on life as a kid. He returned to the industry in the 2000s.
In the movie, Themmen played Mike Teevee, a television-addicted kid who finds one of the golden tickets that grants him entry into the chocolate factory.
The living cast of Willy Wonka reunited in 2021, and Themmen told PEOPLE they first got together in the ‘90s. The hardest person to find was Michael Bollner, who played Augustus Gloop, and the cast put ads in German newspapers to track him down. When the other former child actors asked him to come to Boston so they could be interviewed together, he was shocked that anyone cared about the film.
“I wasn’t aware at all that the film is shown anywhere,” he told PEOPLE. “In Germany, nobody knew the film until the Johnny Depp version came [out].”
Themmen told PEOPLE at the time, “Who would have thought 50 years ago that we would still be talking about this and to be involved in a project like this — that it’s still relevant? It’s been exciting. Fans all have special memories of the very first time that they saw this film, and it truly means something to them.”
