Let’s take a look at interesting things you probably didn’t know about Disney’s live-action remake of their classic animated movie. To prepare to play Cinderella Lily James practised yoga every day to help get the right posture and elegance for her character. She also took horseback riding lessons for six weeks.
And to understand how Cinderella maintained her strength and goodness despite the cruelty she faced James researched spirituality reading about leaders and pacifists such as Gandhi.
To help develop the natural rapport real-life sisters have director Kenneth Branagh encouraged actresses Holliday Grainger and Sophie McShera who play Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters to improvise on set.
To make Cinderella’s world feel both believable and fitting for a fairy tale production designer Dante Ferretti mixed historical reality with fantasy taking inspiration from Northern European architecture of the 16th 17th and 18th centuries.
Director Kenneth Branagh wanted Cinderella’s world to have a 19th-century look. Which meant the movie’s design team could include earlier styles of architecture into their designs.
The set for the palace ballroom took around 9 months to build at Pinewood Studios on the 007 soundstage. The ballroom’s design was inspired by French architecture including the Louvre and the Hotel de Soubise both of which have grand staircases.
The ballroom measured 50 yards long 35 yards wide and 30 feet high and had marble floors and walls a huge staircase golden statues thousands of flowers and curtains made from more than 2,000 yards of material.
In the ballroom there were 17 huge chandeliers that were custom-made in Venice Italy. The chandeliers had almost 5,000 oil candles each of which was lit by hand.
The movie’s design team built the exterior of Cinderella’s family’s home on location at Black Park a country park in Buckinghamshire England. The interiors of Cinders’ home including the bedrooms her father’s study and the attic were built on soundstages at Pinewood Studios.
Although the story takes place around the 1830 s costume designer Sandy Powell used artistic license to do what was best for each character. So the costumes aren’t strictly 19th century but rather a 1940s version of that era.
Powell approached the film like a storybook for children. In other words she made her designs bright and colorful with fairly-easy references as to who was good and who was evil.
Costume designer Sandy Powell didn’t want Cinderella’s usual outfit to be rags or a patchwork dress. Instead Cinders wears a dress that gradually deteriorates and fades but looks like something she would have worn in happier days when her father was still alive. The dress is made of aqua cotton voile and is influenced by a 1920s floral print with big pale pink flowers almost hidden in the material.
Cinderella’s ball gown took months to make with numerous prototypes fittings and trials which included moving and dancing along the way. To give the dress a light almost weightless look costume designer Sandy Powell used many layers of very fine fabric in different shades of blue which gave the gown its watery lilac blue color. Nine different versions of Cinderella’s ball gown were made featuring more than 270 yards of fabric lots of petticoats more than 10 000 Swarovski crystals and over 3 miles of hems.
It took 16 people 550 hours to make Cinderella’s silk organza wedding dress. Unlike Cinders’ ball gown only one wedding dress was made.
For Cate Blanchett’s wicked stepmother costumes designer Sandy Powell took inspiration from s photos of movie stars such as Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford. Powell used a strong jewel-tone colour palette and a lot of black for the stepmother’s clothes to give her a sharp edge in spite of her beauty. And she gave the stepmother and her daughters so many incredible outfits to emphasis the fact that they were spending all the money left by Cinderella’s father on their own clothes.
The stepsisters’ outfits were deliberately designed with the cheapest fabrics to look over the top and tasteless. As well as making the sisters look silly this also helped keep the focus on the stepmother.
Of all the characters in the live-action Cinderella costume designer Sandy Powell says the Prince is the one who looks most like his character in Disney’s animated Cinderella movie. In this new film the Prince’s costumes often feature shades of blue to accentuate actor Richard Madden’s blue eyes. And even though it would have been more historically accurate for the Prince’s uniform to have tight white breeches with baggy knees Powell thought fitted trousers looked more flattering.
Helena Bonham Carter’s Fairy Godmother gown was almost 4 feet wide made up of over 130 yards of fabric featured 10000 Swarovski crystals and had 400 LED lights sewn into the material so it would light up when she cast a spell.
There were more than 200 extras in Cinderella’s ballroom scenes. These included 25 guards, 20 servants professional dancers and 30 orchestra members.
The costumes worn by guests at the royal Ball were inspired by ballroom dance scenes in classic films such as Italian director Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard and American director Alexander Hall’s Once Upon A Time.
Over 3 months of planning and preparation including casting wardrobe fittings and rehearsals were needed for the whole ballroom sequence. And more than 35 assistant directors helped oversee it.
The shape of Cinderella’s glass slipper is based on a shoe from the 1890s which costume designer Sandy Powell found in a shoe museum in Northampton England.
Powell looked at different ways of making a glass shoe but because the shoe needed to sparkle she realised it had to be made of crystal. So over many months she worked with the Austrian crystal company Swarovski and they developed a special piece of machinery to make the shoe.
Eight copies of the slipper were made however none of them were actually worn in the film. Instead they were used as props for example in the scenes where maidens try on the slipper and where the slipper is smashed.
During the ballroom scenes the filmmakers used five cameras to make sure they caught every moment in the dance sequences from as many positions as possible. And they also used two cranes to get a sweeping effect and show the scale of the set and the dance routines.
To make Cinderella appear as natural as possible the movie’s make-up designer kept Lily James’ make-up minimal and used blusher to highlight her emotions. So in scenes where Cinders is sad they reduced the blusher making her look a little pale.
While in scenes where she was excited or falling in love they used more blusher. To give Cinders more sparkle in the ballroom scene the make-up team applied a light-reflecting lotion mixed with white glitter to Lily James’s skin and glitter to her eyelids. And crystals were placed in her hair.
It took 5 hours to get each extra ready for the ballroom scenes as each one needed to be dressed made up photographed and charted.
The design of Cinderella’s iconic carriage was inspired by jewellery and jewellery cases. And because the pumpkin’s transformation takes place in the greenhouse in Cinderella’s garden the design team incorporated elements from the greenhouse into the carriage’s design.
For example the seat Cinderella sits on is from the greenhouse. The carriage was 10 feet high 17 feet long and weighed nearly 2 tons. In fact it was too heavy to be pulled by real horses so the design team had to remove some of the ironwork used in it and replace it with light-weight sculptures.
Well there you have it things you probably didn't know about Cinderella!