It was quite an honor to interview Director Kenneth Branagh, not only is he a marvelous director, he is also a well-known actor, producer and screenwriter who I’ve been a fan of for years!.
He was exceptionally upbeat when he entered the room, wanting to know who we had interviewed so far, and was very happy to answer all of our questions.
Cinderella
Having known Mr. Branagh for more action-packed movies like Thor, we wondered what brought him to Cinderella. “I think it was the surprise of being asked. I hadn’t long ago done Thor, and I did a film called Jack Ryan. And so a couple of quite boy-sy films, and then being asked to do a fairy-tale and such a famous one. I remembered a couple things from Cinderella…. I loved the chase back from the palace at midnight. I also really remember in the original animated film the stepmother coming out of the dark with two blazing green eyes, at which she’s lying in bed and Cinderella brings her some tea. I remember it being a bit scary but very exciting and fun.
I was very aware also if you do a Disney film then you have a big responsibility. There’s gonna be a lot of kids seeing it for the first time, and they all know the story as well. I’ve never made a film where the lights go down and you realize that everybody from five to 95 knows what’s gonna happen next. So it’s not about what happens next. It’s about how you do what happens next. So that was very exciting!”
He also stated that he felt that the story of Cinderella can be deeply personal to a lot for people. “I think that there’s a relationship to the underdog or the outsider or however we chose to categorize her that seems to represent us, our hopes and dreams and aspirations.”
Casting
Kenneth went on to discuss the casting process, and what he was looking for in “his Cinderella.” “I had an idea of how Cinderella should be. We knew that it would take a while and that you had to really feel that the character. She had to be likable, and have a good sense of humor. We were calling for a kind of approachable beauty, and kindness, and passion and strength and that could stand up in a scene with Miss Blanchett or Miss Bonham-Carter.”
He wanted her to have a simplicity without being sappy. So when he heard Lily James’ voice, he exclaimed how beautiful it was, and then how beautiful she was. He also complimented on her patience throughout all of the auditions, and because all of that, he just knew that she was the one.
As for the Prince, he chose Richard Madden because, “Apart from very blue eyes, and very tight trousers [LAUGHTER] he had intelligence and wit. And also he relished the idea of how you might sort of play a gentleman.
I think both these actors…. I love the idea that they were prepared to be uncynical in the film, and just sort of respond directly to each other and that a gallantry, a courtship. The desire to woo, to serve, to listen were things that he felt could be played very positively and would be very, very attractive and that in a way there was a natural disposition in the world of the piece that we presented for him to love her.
It was a very powerful thing to be somebody listening, looking, and reacting. I think it’s very touching and wonderful chemistry between them, and I think he was somebody I felt could do this thing we needed to do of having a man who earned Cinderella’s respect and love.”
After someone commented on Nonso Anozie (Captain) in the movie and what a great role he played, Kenneth had nothing but good to say about the actor, “Nonso is an actor who I worked with about 12 years ago in the theatre. He’d just come out of drama school. He’s a man mountain. He’s actually enormous, but a darling bloke. He’s a wonderful actor. So he was also in my last film Jack Ryan, and I knew that he would play these kind of oak tree of a guy with a real twinkle in his eye. And also there’s very few people who can stand up to Cate Blanchett and say, I’ll tell you what to do. Or I forbid it. Cate Blanchett actually turns around and looks rather scared. You know, so I knew that Nonso would be able to do that. And he’s a big, good-hearted guy, and a he’s a wonderful actor.”
Most Difficult Scene
The most difficult scene to direct for Kenneth was the ballroom sequence. He went on to discuss the expectation of that and how you just couldn’t mess up that pivotal scene.
“I wanted to take people to the ball. But I also knew that for me the scene was just as much about his hand on the small of her back in the beginning of that dance. It was trying to keep that big large-scale ambitions with just wanting the human dynamic of the boy meets girl moment.”
Homage to the Classic?
When making a Disney film, especially one that is essentially a remake of a classic, we wondered if there were any sound-bites used in this film from the original film. Kenneth answered, “We scripted the entire mice story through the movie. So Chris Weitz and I sat down, and we wrote words, dialogue for all four of the mice in every scene in which they appeared. And then we recorded them with actors a couple of different ways. Sometimes we made the actors say it very, very, very slowly so that when we then sped it up to be in sort of mice squeak mode, you could just get a half a hint, half a hint of what they were saying.
So for instance Gus Gus at the end when he finally is persuaded that he shouldn’t eat the cheese and maybe he should jump on the back of the other three so they can open the window and they can hear Cinderella singing. He does something…. and there were a few little throw away remarks like that. But we do a secret mouse play and screenplay inside the movie.”
Location
On how they chose the locations of the film, Kenneth said that he left that up to the location manager, but it being such a small country, he already knew a few locations. He said, “We built so much of it that we didn’t do too much inside real palaces. So the whole of that ballroom is an entire construction on the 007 stage in Pinewood. The outside of Cinderella’s house was all built for real in a place called Black Park.
And then interestingly the forest where the Prince and Cinderella meet is in Windsor Great Park, which is essentially the Queen’s back garden. She lives in Windsor Castle part of the time, so part of that park involves that group of oak trees which are over 600 years old. So it was very nice to be able to say to Lily and Richard you’re gonna do this magical scene in a magical place. ‘Cause these oak trees were here when Shakespeare was alive. It was really very sort of magical.”
On the Film
“It’d be interesting now if you go back and look at the 1950 animated picture ’cause you may be surprised at how far we depart in a strange way. I think we absolutely embrace the spirit of it. And in a couple of occasions we really sort of hint at a couple of shots. But I think the real sort of reinvention is the character of Cinderella and her kind of proactiveness. You know, she doesn’t just wait around but also this uncynical belief in the power of kindness and courage.
And one of the things we really wanted to do was just make sure that was not something that the kids were being sort of lectured with that they could– it was done lightly enough from a character who seemed to embody it in a way that still allowed her to be happy and free and intelligent and smart and, you know, be fun. I mean not suddenly be all self-righteous and pious and everything. So I think that that was something we tried very hard to do. The hardest, hardest, hardest decision in the whole movie was– I know it’s a bit of a Disney cliché ’cause they’ve been doing it since Bambi, was losing parents.
As you will have spotted, we got three out of four of the parents [laughs]. I feel responsible for a kind of attack on the grown ups. It’s tough, but it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. In the first ten minutes where Mum goes, my God, you see all the shoulders heave and if you sit at the back of the auditorium and you see a lot of arms go around small people, either reach up or vice versa. And by the time Dad loses– the son loses dad the three-quarters of the way through the movie, that’s a when you see the boys doing that as well. We didn’t want to traumatize young people. But at the same time as I was mentioning earlier, you know, this sort of responsibility you have if you get the privilege of making a Disney movie is there is a way to maybe just find a compassionate way to talk about things that includes some of the difficult things that life throws up. As long as it can be done lightly and there’s lots of entertainment and everything else.”
Cinderella’s Proactivity
We wanted to know about Cinderella and how he changed her to be more of a modern version, and not just a helpless girl waiting on her Prince. “Well, I think that we start with her in a family that’s functioning and loving and supportive and in a sense you see it created inasmuch she’s brought in to the death of the mother. So that’s shared with her. I think the passing on of a kind of a generous outlook I think is important.”
I think a question anybody asks of a modern Cinderella, why doesn’t she leave? Well, she may leave there. And she certainly has a passionate response to it and a passionate response to the prince that she encounters. But as she talks about later on, she stays there partly ’cause she is honoring her mother and father, and that’s a positive and proactive decision I think to stay there.
So I think she stays partly to try and understand it (what is happening in the house). I would say that’s an example of proactivity. And by the time she talks to the stepmother and stays, I mean the proactivity is the decision to stay in a way and say why? Why are you so cruel? A determination to ask it and understand this. Rather than simply react against it.
We try to play up the various ways how and when and under what circumstances might she leave? I think we found interesting alternates to that. But the challenge was to try and keep her– keep her there and keep her in the story but somehow find the way to express a strength that made us believe as we did going into it that this was a Cinderella who ultimately we believed would be fine if a prince didn’t come along who was not searching for that.”
Iconic Images
Lastly, we wondered what his favorite iconic image of the film was. Kenneth said he was very secure in the world of Sandy Powell and her amazing talent with the costumes, but he did struggle with changing some of the iconic imagery, like the dress. “You know, does it stay blue? The original was blue. What kind of blue? Is it pink? Because the mother’s dress is pink? But should it stay pink in order to honor her mother? How much do we want to see a pink dress for that amount of time in the ballroom sequence?”
The same went for the glass slippers, “You felt quite a pressure with the slippers because, you know, you’ve got ruby slippers, and you got other slippers in film history. And it was gonna be a big moment. So Sandy’s work with Swarovski, to find this kind of multi-faceted thing, which also has a heaviness, was really a stroke of genius. And when we saw it for the first time it was very gasp inducing when we saw the actual object.”
Cinderella at the top of the stairs coming into the ball was another favorite moment of mine. Or actually even just walking from the coach up the steps and into the palace I think the sort of moment where she comes into her own.
We also wondered if they every thought about telling the story from a different perspective, kind of like Maleficent, and how it was told from her perspective. Kenneth said that as soon as he got the screenplay he remembers saying, “The story’s been working for two and a half thousand years. There’s a reason why that’s happening and my experience has been to try and let the work of great storytellers do as much work as possible and then try and amend and adjust as best you see fit from your own perspective.
I know that in developing this they thought about whether she could be, you know, in modern, wherever it might be, Brooklyn or whatever, and indeed there’s tons of evidence of modern Cinderella stories, you know, where gender is changed or time is changed. But I feel as though you get a chance to consider, provoke, and think differently if it’s through a classical perspective.”
Cinderella is in theaters March 13th
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20DF6U1HcGQ
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Disclosure: I was provided with an all-expense trip to LA by Walt Disney Studios to attend the Red Carpet Premiere of Cinderella. All opinions are 100% my own. This is accordance with Federal Trade Commissions 16 CFR, Part 255 Guides Concerning the Use of. Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
Dianna Ranere