Every Actor Who's Spoken Up About the Glasgow Willy Wonka Fiasco So Far

The For You Page is a new bi-weekly column by Alise Morales that will explore, inspect, traverse, sift through, and dive into internet culture.  It’s been a little over a week since the Glasgow Willy Wonka Experience reminded us all what the internet is like at its best. For the uninitiated, the Glasgow Willy Wonka Experience was an immersive event that promised a day of enchantment, fun, and chocolate for the children of Glasgow, Scotland, and their parents. Instead, they got an AI-generated nightmare in a half-empty warehouse full of haphazardly placed candy-themed decor and–most egregiously–no chocolate at all. (It's since inspired a horror film.) The Fyre Fest-like disaster went instantly viral, with images from the event spreading across every social media platform. The deluge of pictures and videos also introduced us to a full cast of Wonka-inspired characters, from a sad Oompa Lpompa that stole the internet’s heart to “The Unknown,” an entirely new Wonka antagonist invented for the event (presumably by ChatGPT) who was supposed to be an “evil chocolate maker that lived in the walls” but ended up looking more like a dollar store Death Eater who popped out from behind a standing mirror. The event ended early after angry parents called the police and refunds are reportedly being issued. (I’ll believe it when I see it).  So how did this happen? Here’s what we know, from the people who were there:  Paul Connell aka “Willy McDuff”  @paulconnellcomedy I was an actor at the #willyschocolateexperience in #glasgow this weekend and here is the first of 3 clips of me talking about it. #willywonka #houseofilluminati #willy #glasgownews #willywonkaglasgow #chocolatefactory #actor #glasgowtiktok #stvnews #bbcnews #bbcscotland #willywonkaexperience ♬ original sound - Paul Connell The first person to come forward about working at the event was Paul Connell, one of three actors hired to play a Willy Wonka-inspired character named “Willy McDuff.” In a TikTok that has since racked up 3.2 million views, Connell described how he and the other actors were given just one day to learn a script that was, in his words, “fifteen pages–monologue, pretty much–of AI-generated gibberish.”  It’s from that TikTok that we first learned the backstory of “The Unknown,” who was introduced to children with the following line:  There is a man who lives here. His name is not known. So we call him The Unknown. The Unknown is an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls.  According to Connell, the script called for Willy to defeat “The Unknown” by sucking him up with a “giant vacuum cleaner” at the end of his monologue, however, there was no giant vacuum cleaner on site so he was told to “just improvise.” Connell said it was apparent to all the actors upon arrival for their Friday dress rehearsal one day before the event that the “experience” was not going to be as advertised. He told The Independent that before the event the actors privately agreed, “We’re probably not going to get paid for this, but kids are still going to come up. Let’s make this as magical as possible for them.”  Unfortunately, it looks like the actors had that right. As of today, the actors have reportedly been paid half of the £500 they were promised.  Kristy Paterson aka The Sad Oompa Loompa aka “Wonkidoodle”  This photo from the Willy wonka experience is single handedly the photo of the year. I know it’s only February but close the vote there’s no topping this. Please find this woman she needs to be interviewed ASAP pic.twitter.com/97wsodLLpQ — ???????? (@agneponx) February 27, 2024 Perhaps the most iconic image to come…