I was invited on an expenses paid trip to LA by Disney to cover the #CinderellaEvent in exchange for my posts of the trip experiences. All opinions are my own.
Disney’s new Cinderella Movie is magical. Lily James (Lady Rose MacClare in Downton Abbey) plays Cinderella in the new film and she is fantastic! I was so lucky to have the chance to sit down and talk with her about playing this iconic Disney Princess.
Photo Credit Louise of MomStart.com
She entered the room and I was blow away by how beautiful, sweet and down to earth she was. She was adorable, funny, and genuinely sweet and nice.
How did you prepare yourself to be Cinderella?
Lily: First of all I started horse riding lessons because I’d never ridden before. When I first met Ken early on after he cast me he was like, “so, how do you feel about horse riding?” and I was like “(GASP) great, ummm.” I had to bare back as well so every second I wasn’t filming Downton, I was at this farm learning to ride. Then I did yoga, to sort of try and feel in my body and be graceful and breathe properly.
Then I was just working on the script, on back-story. When I met with Ken as well, he was like “I want to know, does Ella sleep with the blinds open or closed? What does she dream about? What’s her favorite food.?” He wanted for me to know all those details so that I could sort of just exist on set being her.
What would you tell young girls today that your character Cinderella, how is it relevant to them? What is the message that Cinderella has for them today?
Lily: I think our film, was being really faithful to the fairytale. This is a girl that’s not sitting around waiting for a prince to come and save her. She’s got this unbelievable strength and it doesn’t come from fighting or from what happens, it comes from within. The strength is her courage and her kindness and if she has that, she can deal with, as best she can, what life throws at her.
She’s being the best version of herself. With such an open heart, when she does meet the prince not knowing who he is, he falls for her because she’s a strong, powerful, beautiful from within woman. That’s the idea.
Photo Credit Louise of MomStart.com
Can you tell us about your experience with the dress? How you felt when you first saw it, you tried it on, what it was like?
Lily: The dress is insane. When I first put it on, there’s a scene from Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts where she puts this dress on and she looks in the mirror. I think Richard Gere is looking really handsome somewhere. And she just goes like swoosh, swoosh. She makes this sound and I put it on and I felt like Julia Roberts. It was just the best feeling ever. I was so nervous about this bit of the movie because it’s the bit where she’s the princess. It’s like the moment, and I think ‘how can anyone live up to that?’
Really, it’s this fairy tale, it’s this sort of thing that’s very far removed from me. Then I put on that gown and I just felt transformed and it felt like a suit of honor. It was really hard to wear and it was incredibly tight and it had a life of it’s own basically.
Was the dress heavy?
Lily: Yeah, it was really heavy. It was like crazy heavy and it pulled down on my waist. It took about twenty minutes to get in and twenty minutes to get out. In the end Helena (Fairy Godmother) and I had same problem, we had these like port-a-loo’s that we’d put under us (She laughs). It was the most un-glamorous thing ever. So Helena and I would sometimes be in our tent and be next door and be both using the port-a-loo’s at the same time (She laughs).
Tell us about the he glass slippers. Were they comfortable? Were they really made out of glass?
Lily: They were really made out of Swarovski crystals, so even more amazing. They’re so beautiful but, sadly, I hate saying this, they don’t fit any human foot.
How did you feel during the dancing? Did it feel like you were really at a ball?
Lily: Yeah, the dance switched from being the most beautiful, romantic moment of my life, actually to being one of the most stressful and hardest. Because the dress was so heavy and basically if Richard looked at it, it ripped, it was so delicate (she laughs). We learned the dance we were getting really smart, we’d been doing it for months at Pinewood Studios in London with these incredible choreographers. Then suddenly they were like, ‘okay, the dress’ and I almost fainted, I thought, ‘the dress, of course, how are we gonna do this in the dress?’ Richard had to ice skate so he didn’t step on it. He had to slide his feet. Five minutes later, the skirt would catch up.
What was the most emotionally difficult scene to shoot?
Lily: The stuff at the start was hard and even the stuff watching with the younger me. Those scenes were really hard. The scene where the farmer comes and tells me the news, it was. There was a bit in shooting when I felt like I was crying all the time. I felt like, this is when they come up with a name and when I don’t believe anymore and it’s like, ‘Is this a fairy tale or is this a tragic drama?’
Did your role of Lady Rose (on Downton Abbey) play any part in preparing you for this role as Cinderella?
Lily: Yeah, I think from doing the period there’s a way that you stand and there’s a sort ofan etiquette and a grace. From the animation there a few things and one of them was her physicality like I wanted it. In a real way for Cinderella to be graceful and I think that it helped from doing Downton. We shot this a year and a half ago so before the final series, which I think just finished airing last night. And I think, Ella influenced that series of Rose a bit, it was like, Rose became so nice, and I was like, ‘ oh no, have I got them mixed up?’ (she laughs).
The dress that you were in the wedding dress, in the end, was amazing.
Lily: That was Sandy Powell, she’s amazing. I feel so sad that it was only in the film for like thirty seconds. I was like, ‘Ken, you’ve gotta shoot it from the back, you’ve gotta shoot it from the back.’ Because the flowers were hand painted and the detail that goes into these dresses. That veil and the crown. Actually we did the hair the way Cinderella in the animation wears it at the ball. So that was a kind of little echo. I was doing a photo shoot in the wedding dress one day when we were so busy and I rushed in and we did the photos. And at Pinewood Studios it’s England and it’s cold and it’s miserable and gray. I rushed in, I was so cold. I was walking past this heater and my skirt caught on fire. And I didn’t care about myself I was like, “the skirt!”. It was all hand painted flowers and they had to redo, like a whole section of the skirt.
Photo Credit Louise of MomStart.com
What was your favorite location that you filmed at?
Lily: Everything was at Pinewood Studios but the forest was at the back of Windsor Castle. Ella’s family house, it was built in the back lot of Pinewood. Again, in the forest. And, so, the whole house, the garden the green house. The entrance, the carriage, the driveway, the walls to the house. Everything was built. I used to walk around with music in my ears and just like stroll around the grounds and then the inside of the house was entirely built in the studio. All of it, the ballroom, all built. Dante Ferretti sets are just out of this world. It was like the storybook just exploded into real life.
There was a moment when they were building the ballroom and there were all builders in hard hats and they had begun the marble staircase and the dance floor. Me and Richard were walking past and we went in and we started practicing the dance just in our own clothes with these guys in hats watching. It was really sweet.
What was your initial reaction when you found out you got the role of Cinderella?
Lily: Ken rang me himself and I screamed so loudly I’m sure I burst his eardrum. He said “I want you to be my Cinderella.” My heart. I was on set and I screamed and Laura and Michelle came running over. They knew I’d been doing this torturous audition process and they’re like “what is it, what is it?” And then Ken was like, “you’re not allowed to tell anyone.” So, I was like, “oh, nothing, nothing.” Then, later that day Hugh Bonneville announced it at the Downton dining room table. It was really sweet.
Do you have any of your dolls yet?
Lily: No, but Helena texted me a picture of one last night. It’s so, so weird. Yeah Helena was like, ‘you’re officially a Barbie doll.’ And then she put ‘love, FGM, your fairy godmother’ and wished me luck.
Photo Credit Louise of MomStart.com
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I loved having this time to learn about her role and what it was like playing Cinderella. She took a quick group photo with us afterwards.
Disney’s CINDERELLA opens in theaters March 13th!
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Check out the Cinderella Trailer…
