• Home
  • About Us
  • Work With Us
  • Social Media News
  • Privacy & Terms
  • Thunderbolt Social Media
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Dangerous Cupcake Lifestyle

  • Entertainment
  • Travel
  • Food & Wine
    • Wine
    • Cupcakes
  • Disney & Marvel
    • Disney
    • Marvel
  • Crafts, Cars & Cool Things
    • Crafts
    • Cars
    • Dogs
    • Cool Things
    • Technology
  • Home & Life
You are here: Home / Disney / My Beauty and the Beast Cast Interview: Tale as Old as Time

My Beauty and the Beast Cast Interview: Tale as Old as Time

March 15, 2017 By Donna Biroczky Leave a Comment

Tweet
Share6
Pin
6 Shares

Beauty and the Beast: A true tale as old as time, right? Right. This beautiful Disney movie remake is going to be released this Friday, March 17th, and you have to go see it. I will also be posting a review on Friday, but right now, I’m going to be sharing some fun information from the cast interview!

At this press junket, which was held at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills, we got to talk to the following members of the cast:

·         Emma Watson (“Belle”)

·         Dan Stevens (“Beast / Prince Adam”)

·         Luke Evans (“Gaston”)

·         Josh Gad (“Le Fou”)

·         Audra McDonald (“Garderobe”)

·         Gugu Mbatha-Raw (“Plumette”)

·         Bill Condon (Director)

·         Alan Menken (Music by)

But before getting to speak to everyone, we got to enjoy a beautiful musical presentation by Alan Menken himself. He created some of the gorgeous music for this movie, along with other songs from movies produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, so it was such a treat to watch him perform. And guess who also decided to join him on stage?

Beauty and the Beast

That’s right, that’s Josh Gad who played as Le Fou, and Luke Evans who played as Gaston. They were absolute naturals as they performed their song “Gaston,” which is such a fun scene in the movie!

Beauty and the Beast cast interview

So here is a full picture of what everybody looked like. Isn’t that a beautiful backdrop? They even had the cutest directions everywhere, like little roses and teacups placed everywhere. And of course, like any other person planning on taking pictures, I’m also a lover of good lighting anywhere I go!

Beauty and the Beast cast interview

The first question went to Bill Condon, the direction, about what was the process for adapting Beauty and the Beast to a live action movie? I think that was really the biggest question on everyone’s minds. So many people consider the original animated film to be a favorite movie, so I couldn’t even begin to imagine the immense pressure of taking on this role. He even addressed it in his answer, to which his first statement was, “get over the terror first.” He explained to all of us how the animated version, like any animated movie, is a little more of an exaggerated style of storytelling, so they had to make it more realistic in this transition.

Beauty and the Beast cast interview

This topic led to Alan Menken explaining to us how they really had to build upon their individual storylines, and in the case of this movie, the songs and the music was a huge part of the story. Creating the music for a musical is so in depth, and in his own words, he explains, “You know, and they call it musicals and I’m the composer, but the truth is it’s a director, it’s a choreographer, it’s a lyricist, it’s a book writer, it’s a composer, it’s an orchestrator, it’s an arranger…it’s everything put together.” Later on, Bill and Alan were asked about how they used songs as “storytelling devices,” and they greatly elaborated on how in different types of musicals, “people sing when it’s no longer enough to speak,” in terms of some of their dramatic emotions.

Beauty and the Beast

One big thing that Audra McDonald elaborated on was how much of an importance it was that Emma Watson portrayed Belle. As many people know, Emma Watson is a motivational activist, and Audra described to us how big of a deal it was to her, since Emma is such a huge inspiration to tons of girls everywhere. Audra’s daughters are just a couple of the many who admire Emma Watson, so seeing her portray Belle as a smart, independent, brave young woman is a huge deal in today’s society. Between that factor, and an incredible creative team, of course you want to be a part of something that special.

Beauty and the Beast

How cute is this picture of Emma Watson and Dan Stevens?

Emma, being the activist she is today, was asked how she went about modernizing Belle. Of course, Belle was always a smart young woman who was always known for somewhat sticking out in the crowd. She loved to read, and was always trying to expand that kind of knowledge to other younger kids in the village. Even though Belle never quite fit in with the rest of the community, she never lost her individuality, and Emma really wanted to bring that to life, saying that she saw Belle as “an activist in her own community,” and she really wanted to channel that idea and expand on it.

Beauty and the Beast

Dan Stevens also had to take on a big role in order to bring his character to life. But differently from the others, he had a whole other challenge to take on: sizing up. During filming, he actually had to wear a full muscle suit while walking with stilts! I don’t know about you, but that’s something I’d never be able to do myself. In the story, the Beast was also a lover of dancing before he was transformed into the beast, so Dan took it upon himself to train himself as a dancer in order to prepare for this role. One of the most iconic scenes in both this movie, and the original animation, was the waltz in the ballroom. It’s a huge turn-around scene for the Beast and Belle, and Dan joked about how he’ll always dance with his costars when he’s getting to know them now, whether a waltz is in the movie or not. I’d love to see those behind-the-scenes!

Beauty and the Beast

Now, Gaston. Just like in the song, “No one fights like Gaston.” To many people in the village, Gaston was a hero of sorts. He was the handsome man of the village, and so many people looked up to him. To Luke Evans, it was important to make sure that the audience started out liking Gaston, instead of immediately recognizing him as the “villain.” One thing that Luke wanted to focus in on was Gaston’s pure humanity. You watch other movies, and the villain always has magic powers, a book of spells, something that forces others to follow their path. But in Gaston’s case, he was full human. Instead of those powers mentioned before, he is able to gather a mob of people just through his own words and actions, which is even more terrifying, as Luke says, if you think about it.

Beauty and the Beast

So far, there have been all these deep stories about the meanings and inspirations behind characters. But have you heard anything about a horse yet? No? Well you’re about to, because Josh Gad is traumatized.

Josh has this absolutely hilarious story about his horse during the filming of this movie, about how “all our horses need to do is walk side by side.” But of course, it never has to be that simple. He explained that this experience was supposed to be calm, as Luke Evans and his horse got along great and had done this simple walk together before. But no, Josh’s horse was running around set, as the horse’s trainer was laughing, telling Josh how his horse has never done this before. Coincidentally, the horse’s name was Buddy, but as Josh said, “this horse was nobody’s buddy.” After this movie, Josh even said he doesn’t want to ride a horse in another movie after this. “In the sequel to Beauty and the Beast, I drive a DeLorean.” Please Disney, make this happen!

Beauty and the Beast

One of the biggest challenges in doing this movie was the voices. So many of these characters are inanimate objects, with the spirits of all these humans in them, so these actors and actresses had to learn how to inject all of their emotion and personality into these objects. Gugu, who played the lovely feather duster Plumette, had to learn how to portray her character, while having the opportunity to not be limited by her own face and body in this movie. Gugu shared a dialect coach with Ewan McGregor, who played Lumière, and she says how one of her most interesting challenges was learning the dialect, and learning how to embrace her inner child while playing her role.

Beauty and the Beast is a beautiful movie, and I got such an interesting perspective from each of these incredibly talented people. I could go on and on about their stories and experiences that they shared with us during the cast interview. Watch the trailer below, and seriously, when this movie comes out, you need to go see this. I know I’ll end up seeing it again in the next week, I know you’ll love it just as much as I do!

Beauty and the Beast cast interview

Here’s the trailer one more time, in case you haven’t seen it!

Tweet
Share6
Pin
6 Shares

Filed Under: Disney Tagged With: beauty and the beast, movie

Previous Post: « Our Whirlwind Weekend for the Atlanta Motor Speedway NASCAR Races
Next Post: Get Your Grub on at Wicked Cow Burgers & Brew in Upland »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

Follow Us

dangerous cupcake lifestyle club 33 profile
I’m Donna, and I’m not a mommy blogger.
I’m a Marvel geek and creator of Dangerous Cupcake, a Southern California lifestyle blog dedicated to life after the kids grow up. As my four kids enter different stages of their lives, I get to do the same, having fun, loving Disney, watching Marvel, and not letting my age define anything. Phase 2 of life is pretty amazing, and midlife isn’t a bad word. Join me in changing focus and enjoying life during our next adventure, without totally starting over. However you do it, life is short, live a little dangerously.
Donna@DangerousCupcakeLifestyle.com

We are an Amazon affiliate, which means some Amazon links you click may be our affiliate links. In that case, we may make some money IF you purchase using those links or other affiliate links.
We appreciate you!

STUFF WE WRITE ABOUT

Footer

Follow on Instagram
Life is short, so it should never be boring. Dangerous Cupcake Lifestyle is all about enjoying life, specifically midlife, finding yourself after your kids grow up and above all, keeping it real. Live dangerously. We'd love to hear from you -- let's work together!

Copyright © 2023 Dangerous Cupcake and Thunderbolt Social Media

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT