Cary Elwes recently sat down to talk about The Princess Bride and his forthcoming book, As You Wish, which tells the epic tale of the making of another epic tale. Elwes's book goes behind-the-scenes of one of the most cherished films of all time—Rob Reiner's take on William Golding's story of a swashbuckling pirate searching for his one true love against incredible odds, including death, pits of despair, fire swamps, six-fingered sword fighters and rodents of unusual size. In the interview, not only did Elwes dish on all the action going on behind-the-scenes of the 1987 epic (Colin Firth was considered for the role of Westley! Kissing Robin Wright was like kissing his sister!), but he also served up a few incredible drinking stories about his co-star, Andre the Giant.

Turns out Andre the Giant could drink Gerard Depardieu under the table. "I went drinking with him after our first screening in New York, and I was sipping a beer all night—which he thought was very funny," Elwes said in an interview with The Daily Beast. "There was no way I was going to compete with that, because I knew he could consume 100 beers in one sitting."

Beer wasn't Andre's drink of choice, though. According to Elwes, the famed wrestler preferred something stiffer, specifically, “The American,” a concoction that consisted of 40 ounces of various liquors poured into a pitcher. Elwes said that Andre would drink several of these in a single sitting. "I’ve never tasted airplane fuel," Elwes said, "But I imagine it’s very close to what that must taste like. It’s very potent indeed, and I remember coughing a lot. But to him, it was like chugging water.”

Elwes, Andre and their The Princess Bride co-star Mandy Patinkin drank together quite a bit and at the end of the shoot, Andre reportedly had a $40,000 bar tab at his hotel. Elwes revealed that while Andre drank a lot, it wasn’t because he was an alcoholic. André the Giant, who died of heart failure in 1993, weighed more than 500 pounds and was 7-foot-4. Because of his size and his job as a wrestler, the late star was in great pain, Elwes said, and drinking was a way to numb it. “Andre didn’t drink for the sake of drinking—Andre was in a lot of pain, God bless him. His back was injured from carrying all that weight around, and from having other wrestlers breaking chairs over his back. He was due to have an operation right after the shoot, and his doctor didn’t know what kind of pain medication to give him because of his size, so the only way that he could deal with the pain was to drink alcohol."

Elwes is by no means the first person to relate a crazy drinking tale about Andre the Giant. The internet is full of the giant's legendary drinking. In the interview, Elwes confirmed that the New York Police Department assigned a cop to follow Andre around when he was on a bender, lest he fall and crush a bar patron. Not that alcohol affected him much. In fact, according to Elwes, it didn’t affect him at all. "He didn’t flub a line or miss a day. The guy could handle his liquor, let me tell ya," Elwes said.