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A few years ago, I read an article in which it was revealed that while the movie Flash Gordon (1980) was being filmed, the legendary ham, Brian Blessed, kept making laser noises (i.e., saying "Pew Pew!") every time his character fired a weapon. Because the director didn't want people to see the character's enormous mouth1 moving with each blast, the battle scenes had to be refilmed.

I think this is one of the funniest things I've ever heard, and I have been trying to find the article again for over a year now, with no success.

Where did we learn that Brian Blessed can't resist saying "Pew Pew!" while filming?

1Seriously, his mouth is obscenely huge:
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The story has been floating around the Internet for a while. A post on the rpg.net forum from 2005 says:

Word on the street is that when they were filming the Hawkman attack on War Rocket Ajax, they stopped filming to tell Brian Blessed that he didn't need to make the "pew pew" laser noises when he fired his gun. He did anyway.

However, the earliest confirmation I can find is from Brian Blessed's 2004 appearance on Stars in Their Eyes, which some kind soul has put on YouTube:

He discusses it again on a 2014 BBC 4 special, titled "Space, Time & Videotape", hosted by Brian Cox:

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    THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER.
    – Wad Cheber
    Sep 20, 2015 at 1:16
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    That first clip reinforces the question that I've had for years: Why the hell wasn't Brian Blessed an opera singer? He has the pipes for it, and he's clearly melodramatic enough, and hammy enough, to pull it off.
    – Wad Cheber
    Sep 20, 2015 at 2:37

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