Amy Adams is

“Enchanted”

The Disney princesses are iconic. You’ve got your Snow White, Cinderella, Belle, Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid.. etc. Now, with the musical romantic comedy Enchanted, you’ll have to add Giselle to that roster. Played by perky, perfect Amy Adams, the animated fairy tale lass makes a magical leap to our world when cursed by… what else? An evil witch (a very hot-looking Susan Sarandon). Culture shock ensues as Giselle tries to live in our cynical world. She hopes her prince (hilarious James Marsden) will follow and rescue her but, whoops, who is that McHottie? Sizzlin’ Patrick Dempsey, a disillusioned single dad, is lookin’ pretty good to her.

You might remember Amy as Will Ferrell’s money-grubbing wife in Talladega Nights or in Catch Me If You Can with Leo DiCaprio. We got to interview the lovely, strawberry blonde Amy in Beverly Hills. No cutesie, Disney, ruffled princess dresses for this gal. She was stylin’ in a sleek, form fitting black Dolce and Gabbana dress accessorized with tiny silver earrings. So, how did this savvy, modern actress transform herself into a naïve, happily-ever-after princess? We got that story and more…

AGW: This is an unusual role. All the filmmakers say you just walked in and nailed it. How did you get comfortable with this character and know who she was?

Amy: Well, when I first read the script, I felt like I knew who she was and I felt that it was something I understood, oddly enough. I think that I've always been attracted to characters who are positive and who come from a very innocent place. I think there's a lot of room for discovery in those characters and that's something I always have fun playing. And I didn't treat it like it was a joke. I treated it like it was [a] Chekov [character] and maybe they sensed my sincerity.

AGW: What were the challenges of shooting scenes out of order? She changes so much during the film. Was it hard finding your place?

Amy: It's always challenging when you're shooting a film. Shooting things out of order and keeping continuity on all levels is always for me the most challenging thing. In this character in particular, we paid really close attention to how her emotions tracked and her different levels of vulnerability and her physicality was something we tracked very closely.

AGW: Did you watch every Disney princess film since Snow White as research for this role?

Amy: Well, I wish I could say that I spent hours in front of them but the truth is that I had done so much of that in my childhood and my teenage years that I already knew them so well. There was no need to study. So if anything, I kind of tried to avoid them because I didn't want to do an imitation of one of the previous princesses. I wanted to create a new character. Kevin [Lima, her director] did art and he had it all along the walls of Disney. He had us come in and prerecord our voices so that he could storyboard out the whole film. So for each scene, I knew exactly what he was looking for in the physical nature of the character and the emotional nature of the character, what shots he intended to use. It was really helpful for me in this [animated] world.

AGW: What did you think of the cartoon version of yourself?

Amy: I was flattered. I was a little intimidated. Her waist is a lot smaller than mine so I thought there'd be no late night Mexican food binges while shooting this. But I thought they did a really good job at capturing some of my quirks and my movements. I run pigeon-toed and she does too. Sometimes you get self-conscious because you know they're looking for what will define this character. I just think they're so wonderful. Like I said, I grew up watching those films and James Baxter's animation so it was a huge compliment to me to be animated by him.

AGW: Did you perform some live action footage for the traditional animators to use as reference?

Amy: We did, we actually recorded the scene of me arriving to the wedding. We treated it as though we were shooting a film and recorded that scene so that they would have it for reference for the animation.

AGW: What was the biggest challenge for you, working in all the rain or wearing that huge white dress?

Amy: [laughs] I think it's a toss up. Any scene where I had the white dress was grueling. It weighed about 45 pounds and the entire weight was on my hips so occasionally it felt like I was in traction. But also doing the last sequences with the dragon, it initially was a much longer sequence which I guess terrified the kids too much but I spent a lot of time wet in the rain in a harness hanging off the building with a sword trying to climb. I did not look very graceful so that was somewhat grueling but it was also fun and challenging.

AGW: Could you even sit down in that dress?

Amy: You know, to allow me to sit down, they had to get these big sort of crash mats is what they're called, these big blankets and laid them out in the middle of the street. I would basically fill up the whole street and I would lie back. I often played around and acted weird. I would lay back and then sit up as though I was rising from the dead. It was fun.

AGW: Was the best experience doing a big production number in Central Park?

Amy: Yeah, I recommend [that you] sing! You might not get the same results as Giselle but there's something so freeing about it really. That scene was just exhilarating. I think when we come around the Bethesda fountain, I remember arriving on that day and just really remembering my first time visiting New York and seeing the Bethesda fountain and to realize that I'd now be doing a musical around it which for me is fantastic, I just really had a really wonderful time.

AGW: Your character goes from being animated to “real”. It must have been hard to find the right balance for Giselle.

Amy: It was. That was one of the things that interested me about taking this role was that challenge of making her fun and coming from the animated world so that you would believe that, but also that she was grounded and human and based in enough emotion that she would resonate. That was a really big challenge and something that I was very conscious of.

AGW: How does it feel to have a doll of yourself?

Amy: It's pretty surreal. My mom called yesterday morning and was like, ‘I keep looking at that box and that picture looks like I dressed you up for Halloween as a princess.’ Leave it to your mom to put it in perspective. It's just so unreal.

AGW: Who's your favorite Disney princess?

Amy: I like Cinderella. She had a good work ethic, you know.

AGW: Alan Menken is a huge Broadway songwriter in addition to writing a ton of Disney music. What was it like to know you would be singing his music?

Amy: I was terrified. I was just was so anxious, I really wanted to do a good job. I grew up listening to Alan Menken's music like ‘A Part of Your World’ [from The Little Mermaid]. I tormented the high school with that song for years, so I really wanted to live up to that standard so I did do a lot of training on my voice. I'd done musical theater prior but I'd been more of a dancer so I wasn't considered a solo singer. I did work very hard. I was afraid they were going to be such toughies, but they ended up being so gracious with Jimmy [Marsden] and I. I think they were just so thrilled that we actually sang that they were really supportive and really allowed us to feel as though we could succeed in doing this. I mean, I knew Jimmy could. He's flawless.

AGW: Did you know he sang when you met him?

Amy: I didn't, no, and then I heard his voice and I was like oh, I was a puddle. Any girl would be. He's just dreamy.

AGW: Do you have a favorite song in the film?

Amy: Of my three songs? I think I like ‘That's How You Know’. That was the hardest one for me to sing.

AGW: Do you have any musical aspirations outside of movies?

Amy: No, I won't be doing an album. I would love to do musicals. I'm realistic about where my voice sits and it doesn't sit in the pop world. I could try but it would not do well.

AGW: You not only have to act like a Disney princess but sing like one. How did you get that so perfectly?

Amy: I did listen to a lot of Disney princesses because they wanted the first number to be reminiscent of a more Snow White feel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, softer, more lilting. And as she becomes more real, into the real world, we bring it up to a more current style with ‘That's How You Know’ which is much more of a Broadway showstopper style of song. If you'll notice, the songs continue to progress throughout the film. It goes into ‘So Close’ which is a lot more poppy and then we end up with Carrie Underwood's ‘Ever Ever After’ which is a country rock ballad. So the music continues to evolve and I did pay a lot of attention to that and that was part of what I trained to do was try to sing in that sort of operetta style, then also doing a more Broadway style.

AGW: Working with all the animals, how many were there on set and how many were CGI?

Amy: We had a whole room full of live rats and pigeons. Not all of them. You can't train them to scrub a toilet. I've tried. I would love if you could train animals to do the dirty work, but we did have live rats and pigeons and no cockroaches. I don't work with cockroaches.

AGW: Any bad moments during those days?

Amy: The pigeons were testy. They would start picking at each other. I think a couple of them were trying to meet some gals, if you know what I mean. There were a couple that were like these guys and you'd have to put them away because they would fluff up. There was this one and he was just [imitates bird call], you know that loud noise that they make? So, he had to go. He was too frisky.

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