Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya
Blog post
“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
— William Goldman, The Princess Bride
After all these years, Mandy Patinkin can still easily recite his character’s most famous lines from The Princess Bride movie. But they’re not the words that mean the most to him.
Those came near the end of the movie, when Patinkin, as his character Inigo Montoya, says: “I have been in the revenge business so long, now that’s over, I do not know what to do with the rest of my life.”
As he explained in a 2012 NPR interview with Melissa Block, the significance of those words came to him later in his life.
As a young man,” Patinkin says, “I think I was in a bit of the revenge business for too many years of my life. And, you know, somewhere in the past 10 years, I stopped being so angry and started being a little more grateful, literally for the sunrise and the sunsets and my kids and my family and the gifts I’ve been given. And then I saw that movie… and I heard that line.
And as a young man I remember saying it, I went back and looked at my script to see what notes I’d put in, and I really didn’t have any notes for that line. I just said it, and I didn’t realize what I was saying. And then I heard it as a grown up or whatever you want to call me, and it-it meant everything to me today.”
Through the years, Patinkin has continued to reflect on the meaning of those lines. In 2013, on the The CBS Morning Show, Patinkin said, “And I love that line. And I love it for all of us because the purpose of revenge in my personal opinion, is completely worthless and pointless. And, and the purpose of existence is to embrace our fellow human being, not be revengeful and, um, turn our darkness into light.”
In 2015, he wrote an opinion piece for Time magazine, Mandy Patinkin: The Real Politics in The Princess Bride, commenting on how Montoya’s lines had been misused by some as a political tool for fear mongering. Patinkin pointed out that the real message was the futility and danger of a world focused on revenge.
Too often we think that when we have a problem with our lives or our country that the way to fix it is to take an eye for an eye. That doesn’t help anything or anyone. Violence only perpetrates more violence, and it becomes a vicious cycle. There are political situations all over the world where there are untold acts of revenge for incidences, and thousands and thousands of lives are lost because of them. Not acting in a vengeful manner is a much brighter road to a peaceful existence…
I encourage us to remember that line at the end of the film and say it as often as we say the other lines in the movie. We must learn from this day forward what to do with the rest of our lives. Let it be an act of humanity, not revenge.
In 2024, eleven years later, Patinkin spoke again about Montoya’s lines in another NPR interview, this time with Scott Simon.
And when you think about it, how revenge pushes the buttons of the horrors we are watching every second, every day, globally, in our lives, across this planet. Inigo Montoya did not get his father back by killing the six-fingered man. You do not get anything back from revenge.
A message even more fitting today.
What’s Your Story?
I am a huge fan of The Princess Bride. “Inconceivable” as it may seem, I know and often quote many of the lines by heart. But until I heard Patinkin’s interview in 2012, I hadn’t focused on the lines that show how Inigo Montoya is set adrift when he is no longer obsessed with revenge. I appreciate how this line has grown and shifted through Mandy Patinkin’s life and how it has helped to shape and articulate his perspective on the world around him.
Lines from movies often speak to us. Sometimes what we hear changes over time. What lines from a movie have spoken to you? How have they (or you) seemed to change over time?
Consider writing a short (250 words or less) reflection about your favorite line(s). Each reflection posted on the Building Bridges Word by Word Substack and website helps to expand our perspective and is a valuable step in building bridges across our divides.
How to get started? Click on the button below for the guidelines and steps for sending in your reflection. Questions? Write us at mscribner.buildingbridgeswbw@gmail.com We look forward to hearing from you.
My boys especially used to love to reciting that quote. I dunno, it’s a boy thing I guess? Lines from TV shows and movies are a thing with them. But this, this is deeper and good. 👍🏽
I am glad to have the privilege of knowing how Mandy Patinkin thinks, and feels about that line. I’d like to share, in addition, that the revenge aspect of the statement has never been what I have responded to when I have repeatedly loved the line. Every time he made that statement in the film, and every time I remembered it in life, I was overwhelmed with feelings of empathy for him as a young boy, and still even now in his adulthood grieving for the loss of a beloved father . That line always made me aware of the capacity for great affection and loving connection between parents and children or people in general. It’s funny that I never thought of it in terms of what it clearly is stating-this is definitely a quote announcing that revenge is hard by for the perpetrator that Mandy Patinkin’s character has finally caught up with. But it just never felt that way to me; even when he was going to kill the man what I was experiencing was Mandy‘s deep grief and the importance of the loving relationship he once had with his father.