Noah Hathaway

 Noah Hathaway started his way to stardom in commercials (in which he began to appear at age three). He played the role of Atreyu in "The NeverEnding Story" (1984). Hathaway was hurt twice during the making of the movie. During his horse riding training he was thrown off a horse which then stepped on him. Then during the shooting of the drowning sequence in the "swamp of sadness" his leg got caught on the elevator and he was pulled under water. He was unconscious by the time he was brought to the surface.

Hathaway almost lost an eye during the fight-scene versus Gmork. One of the claws on his giant paws poked him in the face. The robot was also so heavy that he lost his breath as well when he was hit to the ground by it. They only made one shot due to the risk that he would get seriously wounded.

"(Director) Wolfgang Petersen was notorious for his actors doing their own stunts. His actors are always getting hurt, because he wanted....Audiences are very savvy, you can cut away and show the back of somebody and show the stuntman doing their stunt. And everybody knows that, so he wants his actors to do as much as they can for the realism of the movie. Accidents happen and actors aren't stuntmen. That's why they have stuntmen, because if someone gets hurt, they're 'expendable.' And some of the times, they're just more careful.... I just ended up paying."

The makeup team on the movie tried to paint Hathaway green, just as Atreyu is in the book. "It wasn't believable. I looked like fungi!" Hathaway said.

Happy Birthday, Noah Hathaway!