The Princess Bride is filled with so many quotable lines and moments but perhaps none more-so than Mandy Patinkin’s beloved “you killed my father…” scene.
And yesterday, the actor confirmed his personal backstory to playing that moment from Rob Reiner’s 1987 comedy-fantasy classic.
The scene is the climax of Patinkin’s Spanish swordsman character’s quest to confront the six-fingered man (Christopher Guest) who murdered his father, all while delivering the promised lines: “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
TikTok user Amanda Webb (@alaska_webb) posted a video about how much the scene meant to her after the loss of her father, and wondered if Patinkin was thinking of his own father — who had died from cancer before he filmed the scene — during that teary-eyed moment when Inigo Montoya told the six-fingered man: “I want my father back you son of a bitch.”
Webb noted she didn’t expect the video to ever reach the actor. But thousands of users tagged Patinkin’s account, and the actor watched the video and posted his own reaction on Tuesday.
“First of all, your dad is taking care of you,” Patinkin said. “Secondly, it is true. A 100 percent true. I went outside in this castle [set on the film] and walked around, and I kept talking to my dad. And I said, ‘Dad, I’m gonna get this guy.’ From the minute I read the script, I knew. I said to [my wife] Kath, I said, ‘I’m gonna do this part because, in my mind, if I get this six-fingered guy, that means I killed the cancer that killed my dad and I’ll get to visit my dad.’”
Then Patinkin started to choke up in the video and added, “I went and I played that scene with Chris, and then I went back out there and I talked to my dad. So you can talk to your dad any time you want, anywhere you want.”
You can watch the video below.
@mandypatinktok @alaska_webb thank you for finding us and sharing this! ✨ Sending big love and light to you and yours. More in comments. #grieving #cancer #dads
As for Patinkin, the Emmy-winning Homeland actor is currently on the Paramount+ series The Good Fight.