The actor who plays Willy Wonka in the disastrous fan event is speaking out

Timothée Chalamet in the movie “Wonka”.

Courtesy Everett Collection

One of the actors set to play Willy Wonka in the “immersive experience” fan event that became a viral sensation for all the wrong reasons is speaking out about what really happened behind the scenes.

Attract UK fans Willie's Chocolate Experience – which was inspired by Roald Dahl Charlie and the Chocolate Factory But not officially linked to the book or films, it promises to transport ticket buyers into a fantasy world. Organizers used stunning AI-generated images to lure customers into a barren and depressing warehouse (some images below) leaving parents fuming and children in tears, with police called to the scene.

The Independent I spoke to actor Paul Connell, who was one of three hired to play the eccentric chocolatier at the event. Connell revealed that he was hired at the last minute and was sent a text containing “15 pages of AI-generated gibberish of me talking about this crazy stuff.”

“The thing that caught my attention was where I had to say, 'There's a man whose name we don't know.' We know it as the unknown. “This unknown person is an evil chocolatier who lives in the walls,” he recalls. “It was terrifying for the kids. Is he an evil man making the chocolate or is the chocolate itself evil?”

Either way, the event apparently didn't involve any chocolate despite its “Chocolate Experience” title. “We are told to give [the kids] “One jelly bean and a quarter cup of lemon juice,” Connell said. “There is no chocolate in the chocolate experience. There was supposed to be a chocolate fountain somewhere, but I never saw it.

Connell was also supposed to use a vacuum cleaner at the end of his monologue to suck the evil “Unknown Man” off the factory walls, but the action didn't even have a vacuum cleaner so he had to frantically improvise.

The actor ended up playing Wonka for nearly four hours straight without a break while organizers urged him to move the kids through the warehouse faster. “I didn't know where I ended and Wonka began,” he said. “I was losing my mind at that point.”

Eventually, the parents got completely upset and the event turned into chaos. Connell decided to quit with some Oompa Loompas.

He added: “There was an angry crowd at the door and they were not allowed to enter.” “People were screaming, people who participated in the event were crying. There were arguments, people were running everywhere, the set was being destroyed… and it was actually getting very dangerous for us. But it was heartbreaking, to be honest. There were children in better costumes than ours, and they were crying… We were brought in as actors at the last minute and we did our best for the children.”

Connell also pointed out that the word “contract” was misspelled in his contract.

Watchman Previously mentioned Event organizers refunded tickets and apologized for the “extremely stressful and frustrating day,” telling customers, “Unfortunately, at the last minute, we were let down in many areas of our event and we tried our best to continue and move forward, and we now realize that we probably should have been canceled first thing.” This morning instead.