CraveOnline: So this is a very faithful adaptation of the general story of Cinderella, but towards the third act you seem to throw a couple of curveballs in. Things don’t get exactly the way you expect. Did you just need to change it up so the story didn’t seem like a foregone conclusion, or did you just go, “I got it! Intrigue! Conspiracy!”
Chris Weitz: It seemed like once you got Cate Blanchett playing the stepmother you want to give her as much to do as you can. And she also just seems like a very capable, wily customer. So she’d have some things to do. And it’s a bit disappointing if the prince, having said how much he wants to find Cinderella, doesn’t actually show up. [Laughs.]
That’s a good point, actually.
You get away with it in the animated film, somehow, because of the genius of that particular version…
It’s so brisk. It just clips along into the end.
The interesting thing is, you want to be in a place where, let’s imagine the shoe doesn’t fit Cinderella. Well, does that mean the prince isn’t going to love her anymore? Surely not. So you want to get there as well.
“I think that resilience as a character trait is sort of undervalued in society now.”
It always bothered me: there’s no Size 7’s in this entire kingdom?
Right.
I guess it’s magic, but still, weird.
It’s very strange. In some of the versions of the fairy tale it’s because Cinderella has such tiny feet, but that’s a kind of regressive social idea as well. You don’t really want to go to that place. It’s a magically self-adjusting shoe, actually.
What was the most interesting thing for you, writing the script. Obviously you were very excited about it, you were adapting something classic. But was there a moment or was there a character that might not be obvious at the outset?
Gosh, let me see… I think I just like Cindy a lot. I think that she’s a hero of passive resistance. So the most interesting thing is how to get through the beats of the story without thinking at any point that this girl is a wimp. And not just how to do that through trickery but how to develop a rationale for why she kind of is the way that she is. So that’s fun.
I like that she has an ethos now. It’s not just that she’s good, it’s that she’s trying to represent something, trying to change people by being a certain way. That was nice.
Well, she’s made a promise to her mother and she’s going to keep it. That’s kind of important.
It’s interesting that you also focus on how negative that can be for her.
Right.
The things that shape her can also be her downfall.
I think that resilience as a character trait is sort of undervalued in society now. It’s all about aggression and talent and all those sorts of things. But resilience is tremendously important for childhood development, and Cinderella is the great example of that. But it also means that at certain times, things are going to be pretty bad for you, and you may suffer through things that other people wouldn’t.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
