Disclosure – I received an invite to the #CinderellaEvent. All expenses were paid for and covered by Disney. The opinions stated herein are 100% my own.
Yesterday I posted our interview with Cate Blanchett who plays Lady Tremaine. We also had the opportunity to interview Lily James who plays Cinderella. I will have to say that I enjoyed the interview with Lily James just as much as Cate’s interview. These two ladies are extremely talented and a charm to be around, even if it was for only about 20 minutes. Definitely a once in a lifetime opportunities.
In the movie Cinderella, Lily James looked AMAZING on the big screen. She also looked just amazing in person without her big blue beautiful dress. One thing that I love about Lily James is her accent. Although I have never seen an episode of Downtown Abbey, after interviewing Lily I want to watch the series.
During this interview with Lily James our group got to ask some great questions. We asked about what her favorite scene was, favorite location, what she wore to the premiere a few questions about the dresses that she wore in the movie and more. Here are some of my favorites but I thought all questions were great. You can hear the whole interview and hear Lily James voice below.
Q: How did you prepare yourself, leading up to the beginning of filming to be Cinderella?
Well, first of all I started horse riding lessons ‘cause I’d never ridden before. When I first met Ken early on after he cast me he was like, ‘so, how do you feel about horse riding?’ and I was like, great and so I start, and I had to bare back as well so I was going, every time, every second I wasn’t filming Downton, I was at this farm learning to ride. Um, and then I did yoga, to sort of try and feel in my body and, you know, graceful and breathe properly.
And that was physically, and then I was just working on the script on back-story. When I met with Ken as well, he was like, ‘I want to know, does Ella sleep with the blinds open or closed, what does she dream about, you know, what’s her favorite food.’ He wanted to know, for me to know all those details so that I could sort of just exist on set being her, you know.
Q: What is the message that Cinderella has for young girls today?
Yeah, well, I think with the fi–, with our film, was being really faithful to the, um, fairytale. This is a girl that’s not sitting around waiting for a prince to come and save her. That she’s, she’s got this unbelievable strength and it doesn’t come from fighting or from, you know, what happens, it comes from within. And that she has, and the strength is her courage and her kindness and that, if she has that, she can, in a way, deal with, as best she can what life throws at her.
Um, and by being this person that, you know she’s being the best version of herself. And, and, and, and with such an open heart when she does meet the prince not knowing who he is, he falls for her because she’s a strong, powerful, you know, beautiful from within woman. That’s the idea.
Q: Can you tell us about, you know, how you felt when you first saw it, you tried it on, what it was like.
The dress is insane. When I first put it on, there’s a scene from Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts where she looks, she puts this dress on and she looks in the mirror and, I think Richard Gere is looking really handsome somewhere and she just goes like swoosh, swoosh. She makes this sound and I put it on and I felt like Julia Roberts, it was just the best feeling ever. I was so nervous about this bit of the movie ‘cause it’s the bit where she’s the princess. It’s like the moment, you know, and I think, ‘how can anyone live up to that?’
Really, you know, it’s this fairy tale, it’s this sort of thing that’s very far removed from me. And then I put on that gown and I just felt transformed and it felt like a suit of honor. It was really hard to wear and it was incredibly tight and it had a life of it’s own basically.
Interview with Lily James For Disney’s Cinderella movie.
Listen to the questions above plus all the others asked by pressing the play button below:
After the interview Lily James was kind enough to take a group photo with us:
CINDERELLA opens in theaters everywhere on March 13th!
Lilly James is so pretty. I would love to see this movie.
What a great interview! I can’t wait to take my girls to see this!
This is a fun interview. I can’t wait to see this movie when it comes out.
So amazing, I would love to interview Lily James myself!
I bet the interview was a blast. Great opportunity.
Meeting Cinderella must have been quite an experience! Can’t wait to see the movie. 🙂
This sounds like it was an amazing experience and I can’t wait to see the movie!
What a wonderful trip for all of you. It sounds like she was a perfect choice for this role. I seriously love that dress.
Let me tell you that I am dying to see this movie. Cinderella is one of my all-time favorites! It looks like you had a lot of fun. I’ve enjoyed reading the posts about your experience.
I absolutely adore her in Downton Abbey. I was very excited when I realized she was playing Cinderella. I’m definitely going to buy this movie!
Such a great interview! I can’t wait to see this with my girls!
What a great experience! I cant wait to see this movie with Bri.
I saw the posters and 3D stands for Cinderella when we went to see Mockingjay, but I had no idea it was Lily James until I saw her in a magazine. She’s adorable on Downton (you’ve got to watch it!!)
I can’t wait to see this movie!! I am excited to see what Disney did to this movie.
It’s fun to hear her reaction when she got all glammed up. She’s adorable!
I can’t wait to watch this movie with my family
What a great event and a memorable opportunity to interview lily. This was a great read.
What a great interview. We are excited to see it soon.