The 2004 film starring Anne Hathaway , Ella Enchanted , was an early 2000s, classic princess flick! It is hard to believe that it’s already 16 years old.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve seen this movie a million times over. But just when you thought you knew everything there is to know about it,
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1. Anne Hathaway did all of her own singing.
Many actors that have singing parts in films, but don’t actually sing well IRL, will often have a professional singer sing for them.
But Anne’s vocals were impressive enough that she was able to do her own!
“I love singing and it’s something that I really enjoy doing, but I didn’t want it to appear obnoxious in the film. There have been times when I’ve seen actors do it, where all of a sudden the character has nothing to do with having a good voice and they bust out this Aretha Franklin-style vocals against full orchestration,” she told *Live About*.
“I’m like, ‘Come on, that’s completely cheesy and unbelievable.’ So when they approached me about doing this song, I initially said no because I thought it was going to be cheesy.”
“Then we found the right song and so I thought, ‘Ok, this would be better. But you have to understand that I’m not going to sing it as me, I’m going to sing it as Ella, which means kind of tentative in the beginning.'”
“‘We have to make it build to a certain point and it has to be really short.’ And we met all that criteria so then I just sort of went off and did it, and tried not to mess it up.”
2. But she had no desire to become a professional singer.
Despite being praised for her hidden vocal talents, Anne revealed to Live About that she has absolutely no interest in becoming a pop-star.
“No. I have no aspirations of world domination through the pop charts. None at all,” she said .
3. Anne and her castmate, Hugh Dancy went on a “drinking spree” while they were filming in Ireland.
During their time filming Ella Enchanted in Ireland, Anne and her co-star, Hugh, decided to have a night out on the town, and ended up going on a pub-crawl !
4. Anne practiced kickboxing and miming for weeks leading up to filming.
While none of Anne’s stunts blew our hair back, she was still committed to trying her best!
Leading up to filming, she spent a few weeks training in kickboxing and miming .
5. Anne admitted that she would most likely not be playing the role of a princess again in her career.
“I knew that people would kind of raise their eyebrows if I took on yet another fairy tale, but I thought this one was so different from Princess Diaries in that Princess Diaries kind of embraces the fact that it is a fairy tale,” she told Live About .
“’Ella’ makes fun of itself because of it. But in terms of the princess role, there is only so long that you can play those,” she continued.as a young lady before you start feeling really ridiculous.
“They are so much fun to do, I figure I might as well get the most out of them while I can. Then [I’ll] go off and play all the drug addicts and the prostitutes, and all the good ones you win Oscars for a little bit later on. But now I am, yes, ready to hang up the tiara [and] put the ball gown in storage .”
6. Anne read the book that the film is based off of long before she actually accepted the role.
“Miramax actually gave me the book to read when I was 16 years old. They said just keep it in the back of your head and it might be a fun project somewhere down the line. And I never could get it out of my head actually,” she told Live About .
7. Anne dropped out of school to film the movie.
At the time, Anne was pursuing an academic career as well as an acting career.
However, the two became too difficult to juggle once she was offered a role in Ella Enchanted , and she ultimately chose a career in show business!
8. Anne admitted that there were some lines in the film that she had trouble getting through without laughing.
“Tommy O’Haver would come up to me and [say], ‘Ok, now just imagine there is a snake right there, step on him and kick it.’ And I was like, ‘Imagine there’s a snake right there, step on it and kick it? Ok, where are we? What movie are we making? What have I signed on to?’ But for me a huge one was the ogres because [of] their butt cracks. I died every single time,” she told Live About .
9. The original script was much closer to the book.
Anne revealed to Live About , that the original script of the film was much closer to the book.
“Originally there was a script made that was closer to the way the book was and it didn’t work as a film. Maybe it would have, but it wasn’t necessarily a film that I wanted to make,” she said .
10. The film’s original release date was postponed by Harvey Weinstein.
The movie was originally supposed to be released over the Christmas holidays in 2003, but was postponed for reasons unknown until the new year.
When the film’s director was asked in an interview what caused the delay, he replied : “Well maybe you should ask Harvey,” referring to Harvey Weinstein, who owned part of the production company at the time.
