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Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement, Press Conference
Q&A from the press conference attended by Julie Andrews, Anne Hathaway and director Garry Marshall.
Article written by: Press Release
Five years have passed since the original ended
and Mia (Anne Hathaway) has matured into a stunning, young woman and is ready
to assume her role as princess of Genovia. No sooner has she moved into the
Royal Palace with her beautiful, wise grandmother Queen Clarisse, (Julie Andrews)
than she learns her days as a princess are numbered...
Q) Clearly you couldn’t resist playing the drums in one of the final scenes?
Garry Marshall: I started as a drummer, not a very good one. I played my way until somebody would hire me to write or direct. So in the very last scene I was playing the bass drum, with a bad helmet on my head with the cinematographer Chuck Minsky we both figured we would both do that shot. It was because we did not have the wall for the back so we stood in front of it with bass drums and created the illusion that there was a place there at the end. So that was the highlight of my drumming career.
Q) Was it your intention to go for a world record with the number of your relatives that worked on this film?
Garry Marshall: Yes. Well nepotism is what I’ve taught these two (indicates Julie Andrews and Anne Hathaway) well. This was quite a family group, the most important being my grandson Sam who was the ring bearer, the baby in the wedding scene. He was only 10 months old and he refused to smile. Carrying him was my son who played Shades in the movie, that’s two, and I asked how will he smile? And he said that the only way that Sam would smile would be if I sang The Wheels Of The Bus Go Round And Round. So my best shot was the entire crew singing The Wheels Of The Bus Go Round And Round and the child smiled....and that is how you direct children. You want me to name all my family in the movie? My daughter is Charlotte, Julie Andrews’s aide. Whenever something goes wrong in the film you cut away to someone so I cut away to Fat Louis the cat or Charlotte. And we cut away to Charlotte so many times in these two films that if you look at the credits her name is Charlotte Cutaway. So there’s another rare thing. And I have many other children in this movie.
Q) We witness you doing something that we thought we would never again see on the big screen .... singing?
Julie Andrews: I thought you were going to talk about mattress surfing, which you will certainly never see again. It was simply that Garry and I discussed it and I’m not singing, and I’m not making a big comeback. I call it Rex Harrison sing/speak and both Garry and I had the right to veto it. We could cut it out in a second if it did not work. And happily a very simple song with a lot of children and a lot of sing/speaking on my part and we managed to pull it off so it’s in the movie. And, speaking of nepotism, one of my grandchildren is the first child that begins to dance after I finish singing. She’s the little blonde one that I point to. That’s one of my grandchildren and her name is Hannah.
Anne Hathaway: Speaking of nepotism both my parents are in the film actually. My father played the deceased prince of Genovia - it’s an oil painting of him - and my mother plays the choir instructor at the end who has to go through various tempos as I’m walking down the aisle. It’s strange because my mom is an actress and when I was very young she played Eva Peron and my father in this film was dead, so I’ve seen both my parents die.
Julie Andrews: There is one other of my daughters in the movie. She just came in for the extreme pleasure of seeing Garry Marshall and being on the movie. She’s my daughter Amy and she is this very, very beautiful Asian lady - again a kind of cut away. But Garry left her in the movie for one shot. She’s in the very first reception at the party at the beginning of the movie.
Q) What was the most extravagant thing you bought from your first big pay cheque?
Anne Hathaway: The first big thing I bought myself was my first semester at college - American universities are ridiculously expensive - and that cost more than a car. It’s very boring I’m sorry. I also bought a really nice purse. It was green.
Julie Andrews: The first I remember was buying a dress for an interview. But the first really thing that I ever bought, many, many years ago was my first piece of sculpture which was a tiny, tiny Henry Moore which in those days was far more than I could ever afford and I still have it. It’s a wonderful memento of what lovely surprises I would have in my life.
Garry Marshall: I paid the rent! That was my first thing. I had a lot of trouble paying the rent at first. But I bought my wife a present. I got her a bracelet.
Q) Why have musicals made a return to the cinema screen?
Julie Andrews: I think that whatever goes around comes around again, particularly in film making. I couldn’t be more delighted. I remember when there was a day when somebody said there would never be another boxing movie made and suddenly Rocky came out. And look how many Rocky movies there were later. So we suddenly had boxing movies again. One of the reasons is price because musical movies are so ridiculously expensive. Probably the era of simply breaking into song for no reason whatsoever has to some extent passed, though Moulin Rouge was the exception. But certainly my hope is that musicals are coming back with a vengeance. There is an enormous amount of talent and usually what you see on Broadway will eventually show up on your screen if it has been successful, about three years later. And certainly Chicago is a wonderfully welcome return. It was brilliantly done and I thought it was a wonderful movie. There is room for everything and I hope we are seeing them coming back again. I hear that there are about three more musicals over here being done.
Garry Marshall: I think musicals went down because Marnie Nixon retired. It used to be that they would take any star and put them in a musical and Marnie Nixon would sing. Now they actually have to get people who can sing for musicals and two of the best are here. (indicates Julie and Anne) I haven’t done one mostly because of the expensive. It’s really a bit expensive. I am working on the Happy Days stage musical for Broadway. Some day maybe we can make that a movie. I am also directing an opera, which is a whole other thing and very exciting. It’s called The Grand Duchess Of Gerald Stein. It’s an Offenbach opera. He wrote funny operas you know before he said ‘I’m serious, I’ll do Tales Of Hoffman’ and then he died, he never saw it open. Missed the boat! But before that he wrote comedy operas and The Grand Duchess Of Gerald Stein is a satirical opera about the army. Something to make fun of I must say the way we are going here! He wrote about politics in the army and all of that and that’s what this opera is about. It stars Frederica Von Staad who is a very good opera singer.
Q) There has been talk of you recording an album?
Anne Hathaway: It’s something that I have been thinking about. Recently I was at a family function - I mentioned that my mom was an actress and unfortunately despite having this enormous talent she has not found enough great success in her career - and my mom got up and sang a few songs for my family. And she was so good and we were all crying and it just made me very aware that my mom has this wonderful gift that she can’t share. I don’t even think I am as good as her. But it made me aware that I’m in a very unique place right now where I have a lot of options open to me and it made we want to do it because the opportunity is there. So yes it is something that I am thinking about right now. So as soon as I get a free moment I’d like to sit down and see what comes of it.
Q) Where were the locations?
Garry Marshall: The location of the movie? Well Genovia is a strange country which happens to look like a back lot in Burbank. It is somewhere between Burbank and CGI.
Julie Andrews: We do hope you will come and visit one day. Genovia is right to the south of France a little more to the corner of Spain.
Garry Marshall: At the very end of the movie Hector Elizondo makes a speech about coming to Genovia. He does a whole travelogue.
Q) Do you long to make a movie where you don’t wear a ball gown and finish the movie getting crowned?
Anne Hathaway: I have done it. There is a movie coming called Havoc where I play a Los Angeles teenager from a affluent background who becomes attracted to gang life and hangs out with Latino gangs. That’s a little different, I don’t wear a ball gown in that. Then I just appeared in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain once again no tiaras, no ball gowns. But I am a rodeo queen in it.
Q) After The Princess Diaries were you sent a lot of fairy tale roles?
Anne Hathaway: I think I am the go-to tiara girl. I’m quite lucky that people have already let me step out of that and let me explore different roles as an actress. But yes I am still getting lots of romantic comedies. It’s a wonderful genre and I would love to continue to work in it as well as hopefully many others.
Q) How important in these troubled times is it that Hollywood makes these escapist fantasies?
Garry Marshall: How important is it? Well for me it’s important, it’s my living. Very seriously they don’t like to make them very often because so many of them don’t do very well at the box office and they never get an award. So they don’t know why to make them and they figure they can make them on television. It’s such an international business now and we are seeing more and more things happening in the various types of movies. Not to blow my horn but before Pretty Woman everybody said you can’t make a romantic comedy that will play overseas. You have to have guns, action and car chases. They don’t want romantic comedies. Pretty Woman broke that. Finding Nemo was big over the world and I think it is important that family movies are made but I don’t think they’ll make that many. I like that type of movie but I don’t know how important it is that you should make them. I think it is very important that the family go to a movie together. That’s my opinion.
Julie Andrews: In March next year you will see a documentary I just did on the Broadway musical theatre and it is quite noticeable in that documentary that in the hardest of times - like The Depression or war - musicals became very bright and cheerful. I suspect that in these hard times something like these lovely movies are not a bad thing to have around as pure escapism from a lot of pressure and worry and concern. I’m not sure about that but it was old, I did spot it in the documentary.
Anne Hathaway: It is important to have the ability and the know-how to make all kind of good films. If that means you want to make a good film that is entertaining without cursing or you want to make a good action film without guns, that is still entertaining. You can argue with me about it but I loved Charlie’s Angels. It’s good to be able to know how to have fun with art. I agree with everything that Julie and Garry said, to make a comedy without relying on sensationalism in any way is an art of itself.
Garry Marshall: In last week’s New York Times Arthur Miller said that the art now is in publicity and marketing. Maybe they’ll come back and figure out how to sell a family movie?
Q) Are there any dream roles you would like to play?
Julie Andrews: I have never longed to be Lady Macbeth or Anna Karenina or anybody like that. I’ve been so happy with the ones that I have been offered. There is nothing outstanding that I hope to do. I just hope that I keep getting asked because I am enjoying my life so much.
Anne Hathaway: I hope you see my Ophelia some day and that it’s not just the name of a boat. I feel really inappropriate saying this in the company that I am in but my dream role is Eliza Doolittle. I love Shakespeare and I’m not just saying that because of the name thing. So I would love to play all of his great heroines. oh and I’d love to be a Bond girl very very much. And one more is a piano virtuoso called Clara Schumann from the 18th century. She was Robert Schumann’s wife and a composer in her own right and had a fascinating life.
Julie Andrews: I’d love to be a Bond girl.
Garry Marshall: I’d like to play Shakespeare. I’d like to see how it would come out. I have a slight accent, you might have noticed. Maybe Puck. I could be Shakespeare, Anne Hathaway was his wife - you see the circles of life.
Q) Anne gets to change the law in the movie so what laws would you change?
Anne Hathaway: In the light of current times I would make it illegal not to vote.
Q) What was your favourite scene?
Julie Andrews: Definitely mattress surfing. I also fell in love with Gatsby the dog we called Maurice in the movie. In the sad scenes he would gaze up at me. What a smart fellow!
Anne Hathaway: Julie singing. But I heard a bad story about that dog. One day we were shooting on a beach when the character Andrew and I are walking together. There was this awful smell and we looked behind a rock there was a dead rotting seal carcass. The dog went over and started eating it. It was awful.
Q) How important has your mum been to your career?
Anne Hathaway: My parents were not stage parents and always let me know that they believed I could succeed at anything I put my mind to. Whether that was being a rocket scientist or being an actress. My mother has been influential in that she has offered me unlimited support and unconditional love. Other than that she introduced me to acting but I was never pushed in any way. It was very much of my own will.
Q) In the film Julie talks about learning by mistakes. What mistakes did you learn by?
Julie Andrews: When I was 12 I was this child brat that I suspect most of you know that had this freak singing voice and I was doing a Sunday concert in Eastbourne. I said to my mother I will pack my case, do not worry. And it was a Bank Holiday and pouring with rain, there was nothing but mud around the theatre. I went to the theatre in my very heavy brown brogues and my socks and when I got to the theatre and unpacked I had forgotten to pack my little flat ballet shoes and my clean socks. So there was not a shop open, there was not a chorus lady or any other lady on the bill that had a pair of ordinary looking shoes and my socks had this dark ring where the rain had splattered them and my mother said ‘I’ll paint a shoe on your foot, we’ve got the white, let’s make your shoes look whiter’. And I said well ok but what are you going to do about the holes in my socks? She said “I’ll paint your foot’. And that is exactly what she did but what was so terrible was that it was a concert hall and there were no footlights and my socks didn‘t dry. So wherever I went I left white footprints. So what I learned is always to pack carefully and never forget my shoes.
Garry Marshall: My mistakes are that my first decision is always a
mistake. I learned that about myself and learned to use my second decision.
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