The beautiful princess is banished by an evil queen from her world to the gritty reality of the streets of modern-day Manhattan. She falls for a lawyer who has come to her aid but she is already promised to a prince back home. She wonders if a storybook view of romance can survive the real world?
For the lovely Giselle (Amy Adams), life is a fairy tale… literally. She has everything needed to make a perfect princess—a beautiful countenance, a pure heart, a lovely singing voice and an uncanny ability to communicate with animals—all the good things one would expect in her world of Andalasia… which just happens to be animated. Giselle’s wish to meet the handsome prince of her dreams and share “true love’s kiss” comes true when Prince Edward (James Marsden) hears her lilting soprano raised in song and rushes to her side.
The very next day, on her way to wed Edward, Giselle falls under the spell (literally) of Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), who will stop at nothing to keep this girl away from her throne. Giselle is banished to a place as far away from this fairytale kingdom as you can get…no longer an animated character in a colorful, musical land, she is transformed into a very real woman and transported to a very unmagical place: modern-day Manhattan.
Coming to her aid in this strange new place, the almost-princess is befriended by a nononsense divorce lawyer, Robert (Patrick Dempsey), and his young daughter, Morgan (Rachel Covey). When Giselle’s no-longer-animated Prince Edward, along with his servant, Nathaniel, and Giselle’s best friend and chipmunk, Pip, all arrive in New York, she experiences her two worlds colliding and finds herself wondering whether her storybook view of romance, complete with “happily every after,” can survive in our world.
An Idea Takes Shape
For screenwriter Bill Kelly, the idea that became ENCHANTED literally started out in the land of make-believe, with the idea of a wide-eyed, innocent character—and setting her loose in a modern, cynical world. Kelly states, “It was sort of a ‘What if?’ idea. We kept working on it, but we were having trouble in terms of making that character believable. And then, one day, we decided that it’d be a lot easier if she was essentially this animated character… and that’s how we came up with this idea.” The spec script of ENCHANTED landed with producers Barry Josephson and Barry Sonnenfeld. Josephson comments, “It started with a spec screenplay by Bill Kelly, who did a fabulous job creating this world—bringing this Disney fairytale princess from hand-drawn animation into live action. That’s what really intrigued me.”
Along the way, ENCHANTED attracted the interest of Disney director Kevin Lima, who had helmed such diverse projects as “A Goofy Movie,” “102 Dalmatians” and “Tarzan.” These successful films showed that Lima was not only a lifetime fan of the genre, but also someone who could “play” with the classic sensibility of the material without losing respect for it—respectful without a constraining reverence.
Soon Josephson and Lima met to discuss the project. Josephson notes, “From our first meeting, I knew Kevin had a great vision for the film and would bring a great input and perspective to the screenplay.” Says Lima: “I read the script and thought, ‘This is perfect for me…and I’m made for it! I started my career as an animator and designer, then continued on to become a director of animated features. I know this world in my heart and I love it.’”
The true vision of ENCHANTED came to life when Kevin came together with Bill Kelly and their chemistry made finding the perfect version of the story possible. One of Kevin’s key contributions was the idea that the two worlds within the script—animated and real—could be combined even further, with the iconography of the fairytale existence being brought front and center and into a place, such as New York, where people don’t often break into song or get to live happily ever after. Executive Producer Chris Chase notes, “I truly think only someone with Kevin’s visualarts experience coupled with his understanding of the Disney heritage could have melded these worlds so naturally.”
It was the juxtaposition of worlds that kicked Lima’s creative sensibilities into high gear. He comments, “The movie starts in the typical Disney animated world. I like to think of it as a can of condensed Disney, thick and compressed. You open it up and out come all of the Disney icons offered up in a 10-minute opening, after which the film really takes off. It’s actually a live-action movie at heart. The characters from the animated opening become real people, and that transformation is really the core of the story. Things happen in Disney movies that don’t happen in real life, and that’s what the movie plays off of in a big way.”
“Working with Kevin Lima,” offers Bill Kelly, “made us really conscious of the fact that we wanted to make this an affectionate take on the Disney characters. We all have a fondness for the legacy and the history of Disney animation, and it was really taking those iconic characters, ideas and themes, and then colliding them—with all of their unapologetic innocence—with the cynicism of the modern world. That’s what we were really striving for, while trying to find the balance where we wouldn’t strain the cynicism.”
Lima picks up, “And how that cynicism sort of rubs against the innocent. I mean, Giselle comes into our world bright-eyed and full of innocence. She accepts everything as it is and embraces the joy of life. Her joy rubs off on almost every single person she comes into contact with…in effect, she enchants everyone.”
Giselle is an amalgam of such characters as Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle and the Little Mermaid, and like all those ladies, bursting into song when words no longer suffice is an accepted form of communication. At the start of the film, Giselle is trying to create the image of her longed-for prince, the man destined to bestow upon her the most valuable gift that a young maiden can receive—true love’s kiss. So, as Giselle tells her woodland friends about that heroic guy and that longed-for kiss, she sings—and hearing her song is what lures Prince Edward into her life.
In Andalasia, princes also like to sing, especially when they are looking for someone to complete a duet with. So, Edward races off into the forest, following the beautiful voice. Per Lima: “He’s off in the woods of Andalasia looking for a maiden to complete his duet, and he hears Giselle singing in the distance. So, like every Disney prince, he jumps on his horse and takes off. Unfortunately, a troll gets there first and Edward has to battle the troll to get his princess, but of course, Edward prevails. And as they look into each other’s eyes, they instantly break into song—as well as decide to get married in the morning!”
But the course of true love usually doesn’t come without its share of bumps—this one, in the form of evil Queen Narissa, who does not want Edward to marry because, by the rules of the kingdom, she will forfeit her crown. Narissa transforms herself into an ancient beggar woman, who tricks Giselle into leaning over a wishing well—and then shoves the bride-to-be into the well and through the center of a magical vortex where a swirling cloud of pixie dust turns Giselle into a real, live woman and drops her underneath a manhole cover in the center of Manhattan.
After a difficult day of trying to find a way home (and someone in Manhattan willing to help a weary damsel in distress), Giselle is discovered by a world-weary New York divorce lawyer (and single father), Robert Phillip, and his shy daughter, Morgan. At Morgan’s urging, they shelter Giselle for the night. And that is the starting point of not only Giselle’s journey to becoming more real, but Robert’s journey to accepting that innocence and joy can exist in our jaded world.
Lima offers, “Robert doesn’t think that the Disney ideals of ‘happily ever after’ and ‘true love’ exist. He’s a dad whose wife left him years ago, and he’s tried to raise his daughter to become self-sufficient in the ‘real’ world. So he’s living a practical, down-to-earth life…that is, until he meets Giselle and becomes swept away by her joy and naïveté. Giselle believes that ‘true love’s kiss’ is waiting for you and that when you find your beloved, you burst into song, you dance with him and then finally you share that one special kiss. It’s her belief in these innocent ideals that drives the film, and the drama of ENCHANTED comes from the fact that Robert and Giselle don’t quite see eye to eye.”
A Dream Cast
The spell of ENCHANTED is that it is not just one kind of story. Per the director, “It’s really every genre. And that’s what’s been the biggest challenge of the movie—taking so many different genres and melding them into a seamless whole. You’ve got animation. You’ve got romantic comedy. You’ve got a little bit of action-adventure. And you’ve got a musical comedy. And all of those are happening at the same time. And balancing all of those tones, so to speak, is really the magic of pulling this movie together.”
“This is the typical challenging creative journey you get when working with Kevin Lima,” says executive producer Chase. “Kevin loves to bring together talented musicians, painters, actors, technicians, animators—really whoever is the best at what they do and can help him bring his ideas to life. It’s one of the reasons he and I work with Disney so much—they understand and have a history of working with artists.”
The magic began when a then actress-on-the-rise named Amy Adams walked in to audition for the part of Giselle. Lima was sick at the time, running a temperature of 103°, and had little desire to be anywhere, let alone a casting session. Adams’ beautiful and astounding work in “Junebug” had yet to be seen, and so her face was not recognizable to the filmmakers present. And yet, her 15-minute audition became a 45-minute audition and, because of her uncanny ability to embody a naïve, young girl, she stuck in Lima’s mind. After that, there was no question and she was cast in the part.
She found Lima to be a kindred spirit and offers, “He comes from animation, so he has such a wonderful visual sense. He understands what an animated character would do far better than I do, so he was very helpful in assisting me to understand what Giselle is like and how to portray her. He set the tone. Also, I grew up in Colorado, and I always loved the Disney films and characters. Like most little girls, I wanted to be a princess. But being a Disney princess is much harder than I ever anticipated. I think it is easier if you are an animated princess! Snow White has nothing on me, because she didn’t have to do her own stunts and dancing.”
For the hardworking Adams, landing the role of Giselle was never taken for granted: “It was so exciting and it never really sunk in. I had done a lot of musical theater growing up and as an adult, so that helped me a lot. I often burst into song in the film, because that’s what Disney princesses do. It’s such fun having this musical component. I also loved seeing the hand-drawn animation in the classic Disney style. What an honor to be drawn as Giselle by these talented artists.”
The glove fit of actress to role struck producer Barry Josephson: “Because Amy was always so deep into character, whether she was speaking or singing or dancing, it was her experiencing the moment, completely in character. She’s so expressive, and you know emotionally exactly what is running through her. She gives and gives and offers something new on every take—for the character she’s playing, that emotionality is so much a part of who she is. She’s just wonderful.” That emotional journey was a gift of the role. Adams offers, “Giselle discovers what love really is and what being human is all about—what it feels like to have genuine emotions. She finds out that life is more complicated than it has appeared so far—it’s not all about happy endings. It’s about something much deeper, much better. That’s something that I really loved about the story, and that journey is something that an actor relishes bringing to life.”
Illuminating that day-to-day, emotional journey is also something for which actor Patrick Dempsey is well-known. At the center of the ensemble show “Grey’s Anatomy,” Dempsey portrays Dr. Derek Shepherd and has netted awards and popular success from the series, as well as for his previous film work. Dempsey also struck filmmakers as the perfect actor to bring the no-nonsense divorce lawyer, Robert Phillip, to life—a man who no longer believes in happy endings and who is just trying to bring up his daughter in this somewhat cynical, modern-day world. For Lima, this character serves as the lens of the film—a vulnerable character who doesn’t understand the turns his life has taken. Early on in the casting process, a reading was set up for Patrick and Amy to get a gauge on their on-screen chemistry, and the result was magical.
Dempsey comments, “His wife has run out on him, and he’s raising a young daughter on his own…and then a fairy princess walks into his life. Of course, he thinks she is probably crazy. Later, there is a leap of faith on his part, where he believes in who she is and what she stands for.”
For the actor, it was walking that fine line of romantic comedy that became the biggest challenge: “This man has had his heart broken. And he adores his daughter. The question is how do I make the audience believe that I could fall in love with someone like Giselle? It’s tricky, but I’m the real guy entering into her fantasy world. And the filmmakers have brought in levels of sophistication that just make it work, I think. The difficulty and challenge is trying to keep the reality solid, and I had to stay centered. My character is a father first and foremost, and everything that motivates me is for my daughter. I have been through divorce, but I’m also representing the audience in some ways— what would they do in this crazy situation? Why do I allow her into my apartment and my life? How do I convince the audience, too? She is a fairytale princess landing in reality, and I am the real guy entering into a fantasy world. It’s a bit tricky.”
Being the “straight man” amidst the comedy actually worked for Dempsey, who says, “The movie is about true love. There is also a nice balance—it’s an escape movie, it’s fun and contemporary and, in some ways, it’s a little old-fashioned with singing numbers. It’s quirky and fun and challenging. And I didn’t sing, but I think that helps the audience be able to relate to my character—because they probably don’t sing that much in their lives either.”
Princes, on the other hand, sing quite a bit, at least in animated films. Prince Edward sings and swaggers and goes on quests in search of love—in short, he’s the classic Disney prince. For the role, filmmakers tapped James Marsden, known more for his work in the global “XMen” franchise than for anything resembling animated princely behavior.
And that is precisely what appealed to Marsden: “I thought it was a great opportunity to do a film that my kids could see. I have a six-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl, and I don’t get out to the movies very often these days. So the movies I do see are these types of films… so I thought it would be fun to make a family movie, and one particularly for my kids.”
For Marsden’s character, it’s a real search-and-rescue kind of endeavor. “The juxtaposition of these perfect, iconic Disney characters—Giselle from Andalasia landing in the middle of New York’s Times Square, and my character, Prince Edward, not far behind—with a more cynical, present-day New York provides great opportunities for a lot of humor. One of the hardest parts about playing this character is that you know that you’re playing this flawless drawing of a Disney prince, and you have to represent that when you come into the real world. So all of a sudden, you have this giant magnifying glass over you, and it’s all got to be perfect.”
For Lima, Marsden struck the perfect notes of royal puffery and bravado, along with a streak of sincerity a mile wide. Per Lima: “Jimmy plays bigger than life beautifully, and he’s as handsome as a prince, and he’s lit with this inner light. He was able to be theatrical without playing down to the character.” Executive producer Chris Chase remembers: “Jimmy’s audition was just like Amy’s, they both walked into their auditions and nailed the characters perfectly. Kevin was so relieved after those sessions because he began to believe that we finally might be able to really bring these characters to life.”
Marsden sees ENCHANTED as “…a real homage to the old Disney classic fairytale films, and then brings those characters into the real world. These characters feel like aliens running through Manhattan. I think it’s really funny—this prince is a great character, a peacock who’s full of himself…in a good, naïve, sort of healthy and innocent way.”
Accomplished British funnyman (as well as dramatic actor) Timothy Spall also got to bring a healthy sense of fun to his character of Nathaniel, a “comic villain” and Queen Narissa’s lackey (he also happens to be in love with Narissa), who has the grim duty of acting on her behalf as he attempts to poison Giselle. Luckily for him, he has no idea that the Queen actually despises him and considers him a buffoon. Spall remembers, “When I first read the script, I thought it was very clever, smart and witty. I thought it was an extremely entertaining story, and I also recognized immediately that it was a new take on many of the classic Disney films I’d seen back as a child. But it stands up on its own as a piece of very clever, witty writing with an excellent story and some wonderful, comic, romantic characters—a real compendium of entertainment, actually. I thought, if they want me, I definitely want to do it.”
Josephson jokes, “Both Jimmy and Tim play a good part of the movie acting opposite a CG animated chipmunk, and when that is your lot, I think you have to have a sense of humor about your work, and they both do. And they both have a joy that comes through in their performances.”
Another one of the many surprises of ENCHANTED is seeing Tony-winning Broadway superstar Idina Menzel onscreen. Menzel explains, “I’m a real New Yorker at heart, and that’s who my character Nancy is. I guess I kind of know her and relate to her. You find yourself a little jaded, being brought up in New York, and you have to sort of remind yourself that there are people out there who live for dreams and the fairy tales. This movie is a great reminder. It’s an amazing combination of genres—as a musical, which obviously I’m comfortable in, and it’s animated, it’s a fairy tale, it’s an action movie and, most of all, it’s just a great romantic comedy.”
For Menzel, it was “… the idealism of the movie. You know, New York is often portrayed as a dark, hard-edged city, and Giselle brings this colorful, vibrant energy to New York City. Even my character and Patrick’s character are affected by her idealism. And as much as we try to resist being hopeful and enchanted, we can’t help ourselves, can’t help but feel something special, and learning from her. Nancy is very ambitious and motivated, but is also a hopeless romantic—she hides that and tries to be cooler than she is. She’s moved on and will take what she can get—whatever modern love looks and feels like.”
In the classic formula—especially where princes and damsels are concerned—the story won’t get very far without a really great villain. Filmmakers could not believe their luck when, to fill the role of their grandiose, black-hearted queen, they landed an iconic beauty with ample talent, heart and smarts—Oscar® winner Susan Sarandon.
From Sarandon’s perspective, “The film is original, but it is also inspiring, because—unlike many fairytale heroines—Giselle is not only strong, but also a great female role. I like ENCHANTED because the princess is plucky and actually saves the prince. They have taken a modern spin using iconic Disney characters that we all grew up with—the whole style of the film is quite unusual. I like the fact that it is oldschool animation. You don’t come across many original concepts, and basically, I think this film is original and great!”
The director observes, “Susan can do anything, and she transitions from being a cartoon character to a larger-than-life villainess with that wonderful archness and a magnificent sense of theatricality. She takes what she did in the animation—both as the queen and as the old hag—and perfectly recalibrates them for live action. It’s just amazing to watch her. Even under all that old-age makeup, the performance comes through. Just with her eyes. And it’s wonderfully scary to watch.”
Josephson adds, “There is a great deal of joy and passion in Susan’s evilness. We’re lucky in that she wanted to play this part for about five years. She was so committed that she was working on the character, giving us script notes—she was that passionate about the project. And that’s come out from her since the first day on the movie…she wanted to be wicked and she wanted to be expressive. But it isn’t a standard villain. She and Kevin worked out a way for it to be unique, something that we haven’t quite seen before.”
Young actress Rachel Covey was cast as Morgan, Robert’s six-year-old daughter. The youngest performer in the cast revealed, “Morgan’s supposed to be six years old, except secretly, while we were filming, I was almost eight. She’s very sweet, and that’s why I play her…because she’s a lot like me!”
Filmmakers also decided—in addition to the ENCHANTED characters sharing similar qualities with their Disney ilk—that the screenplay would also “tip the hat” to the genre it was reimagining. Lima relates, “Early on in the process, we tried to let the script speak back to all the traditional Disney movies, and we peppered the characters’ journey with a lot of the iconic ideas and character arcs from such classics as ‘Snow White,’ ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ So we looked for ways to work in such things as a glass slipper or a poisoned apple— especially that moment when she takes a bite out of it and the apple hits the ground, and you see the character’s arm hit the floor and the apple roll away. We ended up calling those the ‘princess moments’ in the movie…and there are a lot of them sort of hidden throughout the movie.
“Then, we thought that it might be fun to take it a step further,” he continues, “so we got in contact with many of the women who have voiced Disney princesses and we’ve peppered the film with them.”
So Jodi Benson, the voice of “The Little Mermaid,” appears as Sam, Robert’s assistant. Paige O’Hara—Belle of “Beauty and the Beast”—portrays Trish, an actress on a soap opera. And Judy Kuhn, who was Pocahontas’ singing voice, plays a woman with kids for whom Prince Edward is too late.
Additionally, the script of ENCHANTED contains salutes big and small to the studio and its heritage, both verbal and visual: Robert is representing a client with the last name of Banks (the family in “Mary Poppins”); at one point, Giselle’s reflection looks back at her from an array of soap bubbles (as seen in “Cinderella”); Queen Narissa appears reflected in water, in everything from glass bottles to a soup pot (“Mirror, mirror” from “Snow White,” anyone?); Giselle encounters a very short, very angry businessman, whom she mistakenly calls Grumpy; along with many other winks to the cognoscenti in the audience. Says Chase, “The fun of it is that if you don’t know, it doesn’t matter one bit. It’s just a big smile for those of us who grew up with Disney.”
And what would an endlessly cheerful, almost-princess (both in hand-drawn animation and real-life forms) be without a sidekick, preferably some kind of telegenic and amusing creature? Enter a feisty chipmunk named Pip.
Director Lima on the chattering rodent: “I’m just thrilled with Pip, because he’s one of those rare moments when you capture something that’s in your head. I remember when I was on the set, I would act out where Pip would be and what he’d be saying and how he’d be moving for everybody. I’d be saying things like, ‘And then he jumps up on the cup. And he looks at you and he goes, “SQUEAK!”’ And the crew would look at me like I was crazy.
“I just had an idea of what he was supposed to be from the very beginning. So to have him come to CG life in this way, and be actually more than I thought he would be is pretty grand. I love the fact that we’ve created a performance with a character without him having to speak at all. You know exactly what’s going on with Pip from just the way he holds his shoulders or he droops or he touches his head or his expression changes. It’s a tribute to the animators that Pip’s performance is so grounded and true. It’s really the art of animation at its finest.” The director is also proud that, while a lot of the time these sidekicks are blessed with the voice of a very funny, probably very famous actor, Pip is silent for most of the film… save his squeaks… which are actually supplied by Lima himself.
Again, per Lima: “It was out of necessity more than anything, actually. When we started putting together the real-world pieces with Pip, we just started cutting dialogue to it. And we needed some attitude beyond just the drawings. So I just started recording some scratch dialogue. It just so happened that everybody thought it was funny, and they liked it… so it stuck.”
First Stop… Andalasia
In the reality of filmmaking, animation takes longer to create than filmed images. So, as the hand-drawn animation would require more lead time than the principal photography, work on the classically styled animated portions of ENCHANTED (about 10 minutes total) was begun about nine months before cameras rolled.
The director explains, “One of the reasons I really wanted to work with James Baxter is his history with the company [the animator worked on five full-length Disney features plus a short]. He’s immersed in what it is to be a Disney animator, and he knows what those iconic ideas mean. On top of all of that, he’s a phenomenal actor with the pencil, making a character come across on the page. And we basically started working on the design process of the characters together—the storyboards were pretty much done by the time he came aboard.”
The collection of “development art,” images used for reference by animators, was started a year prior to the first day of shooting. It became fairly clear to Lima and his crew that their early idea to include an array of recognizable structures from animated films past (this castle, that house) would make the creation of a cohesive design scheme a challenge. And while separate heads were pondering what Andalasia would look like, a common style emerged…this “condensed dose of Disney” would feature a strong sense of Art Nouveau design, which is a style of decorative art and architecture popular at the turn of the 20th century, distinguished by fluid lines derived from nature. This soft, curve-heavy style would contrast markedly with the strong horizontal and vertical lines of New York City.
A key to the success of ENCHANTED—all agreed—was that the animated and real worlds should blend seamlessly. To necessitate this, designers for both Andalasia and Manhattan had to work in tandem, as Lima explains: “Amy had already been cast when we began animating— so James went on and designed all of the characters, and we started to create the hand-drawn world. He had to also work with our costume designer, to make sure that whatever he drew could be re-created in fabric… also, we wanted the costumes to help establish the iconic individuality of each of these characters. We knew that Edward, for instance, had to share the same costume between both worlds. Typically, an animated character never changes his costume, so we used that idea. By the time animation began, all roles were cast…except for Pip, which wasn’t that crucial, because we didn’t have to cast a real chipmunk to resemble him!”
Additionally, live-action reference was shot on those actors in the film who inhabit both worlds (Amy Adams, Susan Sarandon, James Marsden, Timothy Spall and Idina Menzel), so that the animated versions not only look like them, but also move and act like their live-action counterparts as well. Animators could then incorporate the actors—their looks, their mannerisms—into their animated versions.
“What appealed to me most about doing ENCHANTED,” offers James Baxter, “was the sense of nostalgia—the sense of the classic sort of animation becoming real, and the whole idea that we were going to be doing something that felt new was tremendously exciting. In a sense, we were presenting a new character and a new idea behind the character—but, at the same time, the character had to have that sort of warm, classic feeling. It felt very inviting just to step into that world, and that was the most exciting part of the project for me.”
Shooting In The Real World
Giselle’s transition from Andalasia to Manhattan was anything but easy. Lima explains the filmmakers’ thinking behind her grand entrance: “We thought we needed to throw this character into absolutely the most difficult situation we could devise. In an early version, she landed in Central Park, but we thought that was too soft. So, she ends up climbing out of a sewer in the middle of Times Square.”
And it was with that scene that production began. The first day of principal photography (Monday, April 17, 2006) found the more-than-100 cast and crew members of ENCHANTED filming at night in one of the most recognizable locations on the face of the earth—New York City’s glamorous, electric, bustling, chaotic Times Square—with our fairytale almost-princess Giselle emerging from a manhole wearing an enormous white wedding gown right in the center of the crossroad of 46th Street between Seventh Avenue and Broadway, with passersby looking on. Needless to say, the event stopped traffic both literally and figuratively…and, more or less, this was how filming progressed day after day.
For the woman at the center of this activity, Adams could barely contain her zeal: “I’m really excited to be involved with ENCHANTED. It’s a true fairy tale with a modern twist to it. I get to play this princess who’s funny and mischievous and her own person. What girl doesn’t want to do that?”
Director Lima was just as enthusiastic—for a different reason: “From the pristine, fairytale land of Andalasia to Manhattan—what an incredible 180-degree turn, and what a wonderful expanse for me, as a filmmaker, to traverse. Manhattan is to our animated-characters-come-to- life what Manhattan is to any one of us visiting this magical city for the first time. It’s both enthralling and frightening at the same time. In the film, we push the envelope, so that when our characters first arrive, they are scared to death of this world, which couldn’t be more different from where they came from. I like to equate it to Snow White in the Evil Forest. So, Giselle is going through all those feelings, of being in a place that is incredibly frightening to her at first. But then, as she gets to know this world, she becomes more and more attuned to it. She sees it through a wide-eyed sort of naïveté…to get to see the beauty of Manhattan as only a first-time visitor can. You live in a city all of your life and you don’t see things that are around you after a while. Giselle gets to see them as if they’re all new, with childlike eyes.”
Many of the landmarks Giselle gets to discover are some of the city’s most recognizable, iconic and romantic places: Times Square, the Woolworth Building, many areas of Central Park, Columbus Circle, the ultra-hip neighborhoods of Tribeca and Soho, and the Brooklyn Bridge (with production practically commandeering the entire bridge for shooting). Shooting also took place on three state-of-the-art soundstages at Brooklyn’s Steiner Studios and on the grounds of the famed Brooklyn Navy Yard.
To design the distinctive look of the live-action majority of ENCHANTED, filmmakers signed accomplished production designer Stuart Wurtzel, who elaborates, “I really wanted to bring a visual splendor and romance to the film. The movie plays on old icons and modern New York icons, and I am bringing those together in my interpretation of the script. We combine the fairytale elements and represent them in an elaborate, flowery, Art Nouveau style. And then we contrast that with the hard-edged, geometric angles of the city of New York.
Essentially, this is about an innocent girl coming to the big, bad city. She transforms the city, which becomes softer and, at the same time, the city transforms her into a real, fully rounded human being. The film is about being true to your heart. In an animated world, the characters take everything at face value; in the real world, Giselle learns about emotional depth.”
Costume designer Mona May’s contribution to the production cannot be overestimated. May says, “This is like a designer’s dream, because you create a whole ‘other world.’We’ve gotten to reinvent characters that have been around Disney for such a long time. Because we are reinventing Disney classics and the essence of what Disney is all about, it was important that the costumes match the animation in all its splendor and wonder. It has been challenging, because the animation is two-dimensional, traditional, flat animation, and we have to make the characters and their costumes come to life.”
To accomplish this, the costume designer utilized extreme layering and detail for the live-action version of the costumes—lots of beautiful detailing, with intricate butterflies and flowers—the result of theoretically combining the classic style of Disney animation art with the style of Art Nouveau. To exaggerate the differences between fairy tale and real life— fanciful and straight lines—Giselle’s look evolves from feminine, frilly and puffy, to sleek, sophisticated and slick…a Manhattan woman. This is most evident in the contrast between her glittering, butterfly-adorned, white wedding dress (which she wears as she falls down the well and emerges for her first day in New York) and the gown she wears in the grand ball (which is a clean-cut, figure-hugging knockout number in lavender).
Sarandon’s Queen Narissa is clad in wear that transfers more convincingly to the capital of fashion, which, May explains, “looks slinky and sexy…but there is also a metro-dominatrix element to her costume, which is made of leather. It’s purple and black, silver leaf, shiny, painted in enamel, with scales on it to make it look like a dragon, all of which reflects her innate evil.
“For Prince Edward,” the costume designer continues to explain, “we designed his look with enormous sleeves and padded shoulders made out of foam…again, to emulate the animators’ proportions on a human, so they are quite large, and were also quite challenging.”
The costume designer also designed the transition that Patrick Dempsey’s character goes through. “Patrick’s Robert gets to go through a nice change in the movie. He comes in very rigid and closed up in a grey suit, a real ‘lawyer’ feel. We open him up throughout the film, with a little bit more color, so by the time he gets to the ballroom finale, he has this wonderful, 17th-century French fantasy outfit—which is not completely period correct—but very, very handsome.”
The challenges of combining a litany of filmic styles with a head-spinning list of filmic techniques was made glaringly apparent in the creation of the film’s final sequence…and being a Disney-inspired fantastical journey, where else would such a scene take place, except at a grand ball? The director offers, “The whole ending of the movie—from the point where they arrive to the end of the ball—is really a conglomeration of everything that is Disney. We literally tried to take every single element that exists in the climaxes of Disney movies and pull them together in this movie, and needless to say, it was a huge undertaking.
“So, to start,” he goes on, “we’re at a ball, with around 100 dancers and about 150 extras just to populate that world—and the whole thing is choreographed, so there were two weeks of rehearsals just to get the dance down. All of our leads had to learn the dance. Then, the scene turns into a big spectacle, in which you have physical effects happening at the same time that you have digital effects interacting with the physical effects. I remember one shot specifically, Narissa’s transformation—we had to rehearse just that one moment for a whole day to make sure it could work, to make sure that the actors were all responding at the right time. And we had actors that we flew backwards based on the impact of what happened at certain moments in the scene. We have 150 extras all responding and looking at the same place on the screen, where we’ll later put Narissa as she’s growing, transforming. Of course, there’s interactive lighting all happening, because she transforms in a cone of fire.”
The upshot: five minutes of film took more than a week’s worth of filming, and the entire time, actors were interacting with something that wasn’t even there…a 35-foot-tall dragon, which, at prescribed times, grabs this actor, bites that actor, pulls another actor down the stairs. All of this was executed on a set that also had to “react” from the dragon’s wrath.
To keep the crowd reaction consistent, Lima utilized an enormous Styrofoam head, standing in for the Narissa beast (just as a small strand of wire with a red ball on the end stood in for Pip, the CG chipmunk). Once the beast grabs Robert, it races up and out to the top of the Woolworth Building. Per Lima: “We created our take on the classic ‘Beauty and the Beast’/‘Snow White’ climax. We filmed on six small set pieces that, when assembled onscreen, become the balcony. We had physical effects, because it’s raining. We have lightning. And we have Robert in the beast’s hand, so he’s being shot in a rig. We have this big old dragon on the side of the Woolworth Building, hanging on to Patrick Dempsey, with Giselle and Pip climbing after to try and rescue him. It’s a great sequence and, most probably, one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to accomplish… but boy, is it great.” Making ENCHANTED Sing…And Dance!
ENCHANTED is lucky to contain music and lyrics by the incomparable Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz. “I actually became involved with the film years ago,” says Menken, “when it was in the early stages of development. My active involvement picked up once again, in the fall of 2006. Stephen resumed our collaboration, which was a great opportunity for both of us to work together again.”
Schwartz supplies, “Alan called me and asked me if I’d be interested in doing the lyrics for this project. I read the screenplay, which I liked very much, and met with Kevin Lima and Chris Chase. It all meshed, and I felt very lucky to be able to climb aboard the train, even relatively late.”
The longtime collaborators and multiple Oscar winners are very specific about what they look for in a project. Menken (who supplies the score and five original songs) explains, “Number one, you look for a story in which music can play a vital role. It’s got to have a style that allows the characters to sing, and clearly for a project like this, it starts in a world of animation, a world of enchantment, and then finds its way into the real world. It’s one of the best opportunities that I can think of for a new film score, because it can pull from the magic of animation and then move towards contemporary music in the same score.”
Schwartz reasons, “The biggest problem with doing live-action musicals is justifying why the characters are suddenly bursting into song in the middle of very real sets and very real situations. So one of the great things I thought about ENCHANTED was that the concept itself allowed the characters to sing in a way that was completely integral to the plot of the story.”
Of the new songs, three figure as sizeable set pieces: the “Happy Working Song” shows us Giselle utilizing her animal-charming abilities to help straighten out Robert’s messy bachelor apartment; “That’s How You Know” turns New York into an enormous stage, on which Giselle explains her ideas about true love to Robert and, in a grand Pied Piper fashion, brings more than 150 dancers and singers under her spell to perform a rousing production number that literally takes over Central Park; and “So Close,” which, sung by “real-world singer” Jon McLaughlin, mirrors Giselle’s inner, emotional journey. It is symbolic in the fact that she herself is not singing, given that she has matured from a recently animated character to an emotionally sophisticated, flesh-and-blood woman, and as we all know, real people in our world don’t tend to break into song.
As with all the filmmakers and cast, the Disney classics were a great influence for Menken and Schwartz. Per Menken: “We’re really trying to take you back to the ‘Snow White’ or ‘Cinderella’ era, pre-Belle, pre-Pinocchio, back to the earliest days of animation. The influence is so enormous—and the rest of the influence for me musically is almost innate—so my music becomes a marriage between the two.”
Says Schwartz: “It’s really been fun both to pay homage to—and sort of gently kid—classic Disney…and we’re sort of kidding ourselves in a couple of spots, too! It’s definitely irreverent, and we’re definitely having fun with it, while still having great affection for it… and that just made it fun on all levels.”
Lima found working with the musical duo a dream come true. He says, “I feel really blessed to have the opportunity to work with Alan and Stephen. They are so perfectly suited to bringing the musical heart of ENCHANTED to life that I couldn’t imagine anyone else being able to do it. I’ve admired them all my life, and to be in this moment working with them on something this special to me is a great joy.” Echoes Chase, “Alan and Stephen are a perfect example of how having great talents in your corner allows you to attack really challenging material. Nobody understands this kind of musical better than they do.”
The director began collaborating with the pair about nine months prior to the beginning of principal photography. Lima comments, “The songs take a road that echoes what Giselle is going through as a person. In the animated world, she breaks into song and no one cares. The animals all sing along. It’s as if that’s the normal way of living. But when she comes into the real world, and there’s no soundtrack, she needs to create her own soundtrack, in a sense, in this new place. Finally, as she becomes more human, the song leaves her throat and in the finale of the film, the song is sung by someone on stage and ultimately becomes a voiceover song. What Alan and Stephen have written are five songs that cover her character arc perfectly.”
For producer Barry Josephson, it was this inclusion of the musical numbers that showed him the true magic at the heart of ENCHANTED. “I think that the first time I saw some rough cuts of the musical numbers and seeing them pieced together, that was a confirming moment for me. I mean, I had felt that throughout the process—seeing Amy so perfect in the role, of her speaking with the animals and working with the actors, how comfortable she was. But then, to see it all cut together—even roughly—that’s when I really said, ‘Wow, this is working.’ It’s that combination of a lot of things—the script, the direction, the performers, the design work, the effects, the music—that just blew me away. Then to have those wonderful musical pieces, where emotions are being generated and passed among everyone on camera…joy and passion. Alan and I were watching during the filming of ‘That’s How You Know’ in Central Park and we were both amazed. It just all really came together.”
Part of the joy also came from the fact that, even though they were aware that both Adams and Marsden could sing, the filmmakers were unprepared for the level of their musical accomplishment. Adams had been working in musical theater throughout her career, and Marsden spent some of his high school performing in choir and listening to Sinatra and classic crooners. Their melodious singing was given a final polish by vocal coach John Deaver, who worked with both prince and almost princess on their vocal production. Chase remarked: “We hired Jimmy and Amy as actors, to then discover they were singers at this level was just a gift from heaven.”
And where would those big production numbers be without dancing? For choreographer John “Cha-Cha” O’Connell (2001 American Choreography for Film Award winner for “Moulin Rouge!”), ENCHANTED proved to be different from anything he’d ever worked on before. O’Connell comments, “The Central Park scenes were very different, in the sense that it has an incredible breadth of the type of talent that’s involved. It’s really Giselle’s number— she has a Pied Piper effect as she skips through the park and tells people her story, gathering groups up as she sings and dances through the scene. We have everything from anti-gravity gymnasts to stilt walkers and rollerbladers. We have authentic Bavarian slap dancers, Broadway dancers, children, and even a belly dancer—we’ve got everything in the mix. So it all adds up to a big universal eclectic number. And then for the ball scene, the highly charged and very, very romantic finale of the film, I referenced all the animated Disney movies to get a sense of the type of waltzes they did. I looked at ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ They all have ballroom dances. And then, with our gorgeous music, we made our own choreography.
“Amy Adams and Idina Menzel come from musical-theater backgrounds, so their skills were totally serendipitous. They took to the dances like ducks to water. Patrick had done a little bit of dancing when he was in his early 20s. And Jimmy Marsden hadn’t danced at all, but now, he’s a champion waltzer. You kind of sculpt according to what they can do. And because they’re actors, they absolutely know how to sell it, which is very important and half the battle,” concludes O’Connell.
For Lima, being able to helm a new take on a Disney-style fantasy was not dissimilar to the journey experienced by the central character of Giselle, who straddles two worlds—the director, however, got to revisit his boyhood world and reimagine it from the viewpoint of an adult filmmaker.
But it is, above all else, a love of all that is Disney that drove the director during the journey of ENCHANTED: “I think that’s what ‘Mary Poppins’ did when it came out—it reminded you of what you loved about the Disney animated films and then transported that into a real world. And I think this movie does a lot of the same thing; it takes all of those iconic ideas and puts them in a new context. That’s where the joy of the movie really comes from—it’s the sense of discovery, that as an audience member, you get to look at it and think, ‘Oh, now they’re doing this!’”
Lima expands on his thought and closes, “It really feels like—although we’re doing what Walt did back with ‘Mary Poppins’—we’re pioneering forward with today’s technology and storytelling of our modern world while, at the same time, we’re able to speak to something that’s pure and wonderful. In many ways—and this may sound corny—the world doesn’t have enough of this. I think that the notion of true love, of a sense of naïveté, and the belief that you don’t have to be cynical to live in today’s world is something that’s important to remember and it’s something that Walt Disney said in every single one of his movies.”
Productiion notes provided by Walt Disney Pictures.
Enchanted
Starring: Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall, Idina Menzel, Rachel Covey, Susan Sarandon
Directed by: Kevin Lima
Screenplay by: Bill Kelly
Release: November 21, 2007
MPAA Rating: PG for some scary images and mild innuendo.
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $127,807,262 (37.5%)
Foreign: $212,679,998 (62.5%)
Total: $340,487,260 (Worldwide)