Everyone loves a good Disney Villain. Maybe that’s why Cruella doubled the fun with not one, but two deliciously evil leads. Emma Stone is the titular baddie, but in this origin story, we get to meet Emma Thompson’s equally malevolent fashionista, Baroness von Hellman.
Stone was excited that Disney was willing to go as wicked as they did in Cruella. “It was darker than I’ve seen a Disney movie for a good long time.” The role also gave her permission to go fully over-the-top in her performance. “If you’re someone like me that kind of has a face that’s made of full rubber and is always trying to contain a little bit, teaspoons instead of buckets, when you get to throw buckets, it’s a joy.”
“I’ve been asking for quite a number of years if I could be a villain, a proper villain,” says Thompson. “I spent decades playing what my mother used to call, ‘Good women in frocks.’ And now I got to play a really evil woman in frocks. But oh boy, the frocks.”
“I had just the best, best time,” continues Thompson. “Every time Em and I would come on set, we’d just look at each other and walk around each other, like we were sculptures or works of art or something, which we were… Everyone created the Baroness, and then I sort of stepped in and just said the words.”
Even with two antagonists in the film, Stone knows the fun is in exploring the motivations behind their sinister actions. “I don’t think I would ever be able to play a character if I truly thought they’re just bad, they’re just a villain… Do you think anybody evil walks through the world thinking they’re evil? I don’t think so. I think they think they’re right.”
You can catch this double-villian feature when Cruella opens in theaters and on Disney+ with Premiere Access on May 28, 2021.
About Cruella
Academy Award® winner Emma Stone (“La La Land”) stars in Disney’s “Cruella,” an all-new live-action feature film about the rebellious early days of one of cinemas most notorious – and notoriously fashionable – villains, the legendary Cruella de Vil. “Cruella,” which is set in 1970s London amidst the punk rock revolution, follows a young grifter named Estella, a clever and creative girl determined to make a name for herself with her designs. She befriends a pair of young thieves who appreciate her appetite for mischief, and together they are able to build a life for themselves on the London streets. One day, Estella’s flair for fashion catches the eye of the Baroness von Hellman, a fashion legend who is devastatingly chic and terrifyingly haute, played by two-time Oscar® winner Emma Thompson (“Howards End,” “Sense & Sensibility”). But their relationship sets in motion a course of events and revelations that will cause Estella to embrace her wicked side and become the raucous, fashionable and revenge-bent Cruella.
Disney’s “Cruella” is directed by Craig Gillespie (“I Tonya”) from a screenplay by Dana Fox and Tony McNamara, story by Aline Brosh McKenna and Kelly Marcel & Steve Zissis. It was produced by Andrew Gunn (“Freaky Friday”), Marc Platt (“Mary Poppins Returns”) and Kristin Burr (“Christopher Robin”), with Emma Stone, Michelle Wright, Jared LeBoff and Glenn Close serving as executive producers. Two-time Oscar®- winning costume designer Jenny Beavan (“Mad Max: Fury Road,” “A Room with a View”) creates the dazzling and imaginative costumes, which take on a life of their own.