When I first heard that they had cast Lily James as Cinderella I was super happy. I had watched her on Downton Abbey as Lady Rose and just knew from watching her on that show that she possessed what it would take to become such an iconic fairy-tale figure.
Cinderella is everything good and kind in the world, and Lily James could, and does make that believable. When you see the movie, you will see exactly what I mean, Lily James IS Cinderella in more ways than one.
When she walked into the room she was breathtaking, and was a little taken aback by so many of us in the room. You seem we aren’t the typical press event, we are made up of all women and we don’t shout and vie for her attention. We are all very mindful of one another and most importantly of the star or stars in front of us.
Getting the Role of Cinderella
We asked Lily about her reaction to learning she got the part of Cinderella. She said, “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.” And my heart…. I was on set and I screamed! Laura and Michelle came running over and, and 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.’ And then, later that day Hugh Bonneville announced it at the Downton dining room table. It was really sweet.”
Preparing for the Role of Cinderella
We first asked how she prepared for the role of Cinderella, and the first thing she said was that she had to start horse riding lessons. Kenneth wanted her to know how to rise, and of course she was on board, even learning how to ride bareback. “Every second I wasn’t filming Downton, I was at this farm learning to ride. I did yoga, to sort of try and feel in my body and graceful and to breathe properly.”
When she met with Kenneth, he was like, “I want to know, does Ella sleep with the blinds open or closed, what does she dream about, you know, what’s her favorite food?” He wanted to know, so she could jump into the character of Cinderella knowing all those details.
The Dress!
Having seen the movie and the previews before, and as a woman, I was and am still obsessed with the DRESS. The dress sort of has a role all of its own in the movie, I mean, the entire movie is based around her one magical night wearing that dress, and of course, the slippers.
We asked Lily about the dress and what it was like to wear it. “The dress is insane! When I first put it on, (I thought) there’s a scene from Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts where she looks, she puts this dress on and she looks in the mirror and, 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!”
Lily said that when she put on that dress she felt transformed.
When asked how heavy the dress was, because when you see this dress on screen, you definitely get a sense that it is extremely heavy, she said, “It was really heavy. It was like crazy heavy and it pulled down on my waist and it took about twenty minutes to get in and twenty minutes to get out. [LAUGHS] It was like, it was kind of cool because it was almost like a ritual every morning. We’d start from the very bottom and slowly put it on.”
Of course there was another dress in the movie that was breathtaking, the wedding dress. Sandy Powell created the dress and Lily loved it so much she made sure to tell Kenneth to shoot it from all angles to catch the beauty of it since it was only on screen for a few moments. She also told us about the time that she was doing a photo shoot on a cold gray day and as she rushed past the heater and the skirt caught on fire! Once entire section had to be repaired since it had all hand-painted flowers.
The Glass Slippers!
The glass slippers are a huge part of the Cinderella movie, so of course we needed to know all the details, did she really wear them, were they really glass, did they hurt? To our surprise she answered “They were really made out of Swarovski crystals. They’re so beautiful but, sadly, and I hate saying this, but, they don’t fit any human foot.” [LAUGHS] So, no one wore the gorgeous glass slippers for real, it was all the magic of CGI.
The Ball!
The scene at the Prince’s ball was of course a huge part of the film, so we wondered if she had to take lessons to learn how to dance, especially in that dress. She answered, “The dance switched from being the most, sort of beautiful, romantic moment of my life, to actually being one of the most stressful and hardest. Because the dress was so heavy and there was all these delicate details, it ripped basically if Richard looked at it.”
She went on to discuss just how careful they had to be while filming the dance, “Richard, had to like ice skate so he didn’t step on it. He had to like slide his feet. Then five minutes later, the skirt would catch up. [LAUGHS] There was a few takes where we ran it like real time so I would start outside the doors, I’d knock on the doors, I came in, I walked down the steps, the music started, I walked towards Richard and we danced. It was really lovely, it was such a special moment.”
Most Emotionally Charged Scene
Elaborating on the emotion from the last question, we asked what the most emotionally difficult scene was to shoot? “(The scene) at the start was hard and even the stuff watching with the younger me. Last night (at the premiere) , one of the little girls came up to me at the end and she was like, ‘it’s so sad, both your parents died.’ I was like, ‘I’ve got the mice and the prince.’ [LAUGHS] Those scenes were really hard, and there was a bit in shooting when I felt like I was crying all the time.”
Her composure and presence as Cinderella was spot on, so we asked if her role as Lady Rose on Downton had prepared her in any way. “Yes, I think from doing a period (piece) there’s a way that you stand and there’s a sort of an etiquette and a grace, I think that’s what I really wanted her to be like. From the animation there a few things and one of them was her physicality, and I wanted Cinderella to be graceful, and Downton has helped bring that out. I also 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?’ [LAUGHS]
The Sets and Location
Lily told us that everything was at Pinewood but the forest was at the back of Windsor Castle. Everything else, the houses, were all built in the back lot of Pinewood, in the forest.
“Everything was built. It was unbelievable. I used to walk around with music in my ears and just like stroll around the grounds. Dante Ferretti sets are just out of this world. It was like the storybook just exploded into real life.”
The Message of Cinderella Today
Lily spoke about how Cinderella is relevant to young girls today. “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. She has this strength along with her courage and her kindness that she can deal with what life throws at her. And by being this person, she’s being the best version of herself and then 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.”
“This is a girl that’s not sitting around waiting for a Prince to come and save her”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20DF6U1HcGQ
Stay Social with Cinderella and Disney
Website ** Facebook ** Twitter ** Instagram
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