The New York Post today reported on Cary Elwes’ new book.

He’s the actor who played the Wesley in The Princess Bride, and the book recounts his meeting with a surprise fan of the movie: St. John Paul II.

Reported the paper:

Of all the fans who have professed undying love for “The Princess Bride,” there’s one star Cary Elwes never expected to hear from: Pope John Paul II. Elwes briefly met His Holiness at the Vatican in 1988, a year after the movie was released. After posing for a quick photo, the pontiff turned to the actor and asked if he was the one from “The Princess and the Bride.” Elwes was so startled, he could barely speak. “Yes,” he answered. “Very good film. Very funny,” the pope said. “I mean, what are the chances of that?” Elwes tells The Post. “‘Inconceivable’ was what went through my mind.”

We already knew, thanks to Tim Drake’s National Catholic Register interview, that Cary Elwes was a practicing Catholic who considers his faith a source of strength (and who is related to bishops and abbots).

Cary Elwes as the soon-to-be Pope John Paul II.

That interview also recounted the story of the Dread Pirate Robert’s meeting with John Paul, but with a different detail about the Pope he would later portray …

My mother took me to meet him not long after The Princess Bride. There were at least half a dozen people in the room, yet when I met him it felt like I was the only person in the room. He asked me what I did for a living. When I told him I was an actor, he said that was ‘wonderful.’ I didn’t know at the time that he had been an actor. He said it was a wonderful profession, and that he hoped I would continue to do it. I continued … right up to playing him.

It’s nice to know that that in addition to The Passion of the Christ, Pope John Paul II enjoyed another American classic.