Releasing simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access on May 28th, 2021 comes Walt Disney Studios’ latest in their string of live-action films inspired by classic animated features, Cruella.

In Cruella, we are treated to the backstory behind the famed villainess of the original 101 Dalmations, Cruella de Vil.

Tragically orphaned at a young age and set adrift in 1970s London, Estella finds herself recruited to a life of grift by two child thieves and the three grow up together, creating a home sponsored by other people’s pocketbooks.  An attempt to go straight and forge a career for herself in her beloved field of fashion design lands Estella in the employ of the Baroness von Hellman whose famous and glamorous couture clothes a not-so-naked ambition.  Revelations of her own past and the Baroness’ possible connections to them lead Estella to unleash her darkest qualities in a passionate quest for revenge, and Cruella takes the wheel.

At a recent virtual press conference, the cast and creatives behind Cruella met up to answer questions about translating such an epic animated villain into a live-action protagonist.  The first half of the session included a panel made up of Craig Gillespie (Director,) Jenny Beavan (Costume Designer,) Nadia Stacey (Hair & Makeup,) and Fiona Crombie (Production Designer.) 

Press Conference highlights:

Gillespie on recreating Cruella de Vil:  “Villains are always so fun to portray, because you just have more license to do things that aren’t quite appropriate or push the boundaries, and create these larger-than-life characters.  It was really important to me that it was not black and white–obviously, no pun intended there with Cruella–but I wanted there to be this gray area and be able to empathize with the choices that she was making and the situations that she was responding to.  And I wanted to do it in a way that was really fun.”

Beavan on mirroring Cruella’s arc in her fashion:  “Hopefully we found that arc that you see her change from a child where she’s obviously anarchic and rebellious and does things to her school uniform much like I remember.  (My wonderful associate designer, Sarah Young’s sister, was quite an inspiration for that ’cause she used to turn her blazer inside out and various…)

“But you just see how she develops.  And I think when she gets to the Baroness who is a little old-fashioned but a very good designer, she learns quite a lot and hones her skill.  So you can use all the elements that are actually in the story to make that change come about very naturally.”

Stacey on differentiating Estella and Cruella:  “I think the biggest thing for me is that hair and makeup in this…is kinda used as a tool of deception.  You know, she’s got to disguise herself from the Baroness, and so when we first see Estella, it needs to be believable that she’s a girl that’s growing in the time in London, and then she’s creating this persona in Cruella.

“And so, when she first starts arriving to these red carpet moments, there’s a kind of mask-like quality in all the makeups as well, ’cause she has to disguise herself.  So, I needed the difference to be huge between the two looks.  So I needed to keep Estella quite simple so that we had somewhere big to go for Cruella.”

Beavan on Cruella de Vil’s design inspiration:  “I think she comes out of the script, actually, and the story.  Because we know where she ends up, about fifteen years later as, you know, Glenn Close, obviously.  And so there was definitely, in my mind…it had to just be possible that this character could become that character.”

The second half of the press conference was made up of the two starring/warring Emmas, Emma Stone (“Cruella de Vil”) and Emma Thompson (“The Baroness.”)

Thompson on creating the Baroness:  “Oh, well, you know, I drew on the life, obviously.  I mean, I think if my husband were in the room, he’d say, ‘And no acting required, really.’

“I had such fun doing her, because I think I’ve been asking for quite a number of years if I could be a villain, a proper villain.  And 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 mean, they wore me, actually, really is what happened.  I had just the best, best time, and 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.  I mean…in a way, everyone created the Baroness, and then I sort of stepped in and just said the words.”

Thompson on dressing the Baroness:  “I mean, my underwear was like a sort of ship’s rigging.  You know, there were people hauling on ropes. It was a lot…also the shoes were a real challenge, because I don’t wear anything higher than a flip flop, really, in real life.

“So, yeah, the underwear was a big ordeal, not for Stone, obviously, ’cause she’s slender as a lily and didn’t need to wear a corset like a frigging, you know, whalebone…But the thing is…if you have flesh, then what you can do is just what they used to do in the olden days, is you take the flesh, and like me, you squeeze it in the middle.  It moves up and down, like toothpaste in a tube. So you can really make kind of quite extreme shapes, and that’s really good fun.  It’s not fantastically comfortable at the center of the toothpaste tube, but our wonderful tailors and designers, Jenny Beavan have such a good time just pulling in the corset, tight–tightly enough so that bits of me would squish out of the top of the costume.  And then they’d push a bit back again and squish it back down and then pull in again.  And it was, oh my goodness, it was kind of cookery as well.  [Like] that scene when Scarlett O’Hara is being pulled in. and you know that she’s not allowed to eat at the picnic because ladies aren’t allowed to have appetites.  Like the Baroness, who only eats a little bit of cucumber here and there, and, you know, throws her rubbish out the window ’cause she’s monstrous.

“But yeah, that was one of the things I really enjoyed hating about her, was the fact that she didn’t eat.  I don’t trust people who don’t eat.  There, I’ve said it.”

Stone on Estella or Cruella:  “What character do I prefer to be more like in life?  Well, you know, it’s interesting, because there is a sort of rejection of Estella that comes at a point, and…you know, Estella is sweet, but, she’s not fully embodied.  So I would say there is something about Cruella that’s pretty enticing, because she just kind of is who she is.  She’s in full acceptance and autonomy there.  So I am kind of interested in that Cruella world, but that said, I-she does some things that I…some lines that I don’t think I would necessarily cross.  But to be honest, I sort of prefer Cruella.”

Thompson on exploring the Dark Side with the Baroness:  “I mean, she is hardened, completely, and believes in hardness.  She thinks that’s the only way, and that’s what is so kind of unusual about her, actually.  Like Emily, I am very interested in the dark side of a female character, because they’re so rarely allowed to be dark.  You know, we’re all supposed to be nice and good, aren’t we?  And bad mothers are simply unforgivable.  I mean, nobody can find words for the bad mother.

“But the Baroness is just so single-minded, and she says this wonderful thing.  She says, ‘if I hadn’t been single-minded, I might have had to put my genius at the back of the drawer’ like so many other women of genius, who died without producing anything and without using their genius. And actually, it is a very good point.  So whilst, as Em says, I wouldn’t necessarily walk that path, her commitment to her own creativity is rather admirable, I think, and difficult, probably.

“…Of course, we’re acting, so we’re not really being mean.  I mean, there is nothing more fun than pretending, and, I found pretending to be mean–well, it came horribly easily.  I was very well brought up by a very kind and wonderful woman, my mom, and my dad, a wonderful man.  I was surrounded by lovely, kind people, and my experience of people who were truly mean like that and truly hard and narcissistic is quite rare.  But there are quite a number of them in show business–mentioning no names–and some of those people have come to light recently.  So, awfulness in any profession, in any walk of life, is always possible, and I suppose the Baroness is a mixture of all kinds of people.  Venal, she’s quite venal, but her greed is really just for herself.  It’s like she can’t bear anyone else to succeed in any way.  She has to destroy all the competition, instead of thinking that the competition might bring her game up, might make her better.  So in fact, she appears and presents as this very strong personality, but in fact, of course, she’s very weak and contains the inevitable seeds of her own destruction, because she can’t acknowledge talent in any other person.  So when she finally sees someone who’s not only talented, but actually more talented than her, and younger and more beautiful than her, she finds it very difficult indeed.

“And of course, I found it very difficult being with Stone, who’s more beautiful, young, talented, et cetera…but I swallowed my bitterness and I dealt with it.  Mostly through drinking negronis, one after the other, late into the night.”

Stone on Cruella’s weaknesses:  ” I would say that her weaknesses is that–this is sort of a movie about that, about her strengths combating her weaknesses, I think, at least for that character, specifically.  It’s very nature versus nurture, this story.  So what she would find a weakness early on or what her mother would deem a weakness early on with just her ability to really hit the ceiling quickly, her kind of volatility, her reactiveness, becomes sort of her strength through her creativity and through her genius. It’s interesting.  I think it really is a movie about how your weaknesses do sort of become your strengths, in a way.”

Thompson on who wins in a fistfight:  “Well, you think the Baroness, because she’s just heavier…You know, you think if she just lies on top of Cruella, that finally, she’ll manage to suffocate her.  But she wouldn’t ever get the chance, ’cause Cruella is far too nippy on her feet.  Like that little–she’s like Luke Skywalker in the little thingy that goes around with the string of the legs of that big walker in Empire Strikes Back, one of my favorite movies.  It’s like that.”

In case you missed it, here’s the trailer for Cruella:

Cruella will release simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access for a one time additional fee on Friday, May 28.

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