I was watching Charlie and ...
Question: I was watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory today at work, and while I couldn't really tell, it looked to me as though all the Oompa Loompas are the same guy. Did they use many people who looked similar or just one guy multiplied during the editing?
Answer: One guy — 4-foot-4-inch, 48-year-old Deep Roy, who was born in Nairobi, Kenya, to Indian parents — digitally multiplied. Director Tim Burton originally intended to use Roy to play only the main Oompa Loompa in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) and fill out the lavish production numbers with children and other little people, but for various reasons that didn't work out. So Roy plays all the Oompa Loompas: 165 total. Roy made his movie debut in The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) and has appeared in dozens of movies since then, though he's often uncredited and hidden inside a cute costume.
