Interview: Anika Noni Rose
Interview: Anika Noni Rose
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Wednesday, 03, Feb 2010 11:06
By Lewis Bazley.
It might be Disney's first traditional animation in six years but the rise of Pixar and CGI notwithstanding, The Princess and the Frog is a triumph for Disney. Directors Ron Clements and Jon Musker, having made Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, are two of the best minds in the business and with Randy Newman on board, it's little surprise that the film's foot-tapping score is one of its most enjoyable aspects. It's since been rewarded with three Oscar nominations, two for Newman's songs, but like any film, The Princess and the Frog stands or falls by the abilities of its cast. Thankfully for the makers of this New Orleans take on a classic fairytale, they had Tony winner and Dreamgirls actress Anika Noni Rose on board to bring the character of aspiring restaurateur and reluctant amphibian Tiana to life.
Ahead of the film's UK release, the star of the Oscar-nominated animation tells inthenews.co.uk about the beauty of hand-drawn cinema, the magic of New Orleans and, as the first ever African-American Disney princess, her place in movie history.
Click here for the inthenews.co.uk review of The Princess and the Frog
How does it feel to be the heroine in a Disney film?
Fantastic! I've always wanted to be in a Disney film and I had nothing as lofty as a princess in mind, so this is above and beyond.
You'd have played one of the bugs in the bayou?
Are you kidding me?! I would've have buzzed myself away and just been happy to be there! (laughs)
The role of Tiana's a pretty important one in Disney history as you're one of the first Disney princesses to actually sing the songs as well as voicing the part - is that an honour?
It is, it's very rare and doesn't happen very often so it is a big deal.
Do you think the fact that you're a Tony winner was a string to your bow for getting the part? Because you were a singing actress?
You'd have to ask them, I don't know! I auditioned the vocal part just as I auditioned the speaking part, I must have sung five or six songs on my first audition and then for my second, I got given a Randy Newman song to see how I would sound with his music so it wasn't a shoo-in.
Though you've sung on screen before, in the likes of Dreamgirls, is there a special feeling about singing a Disney song?
My entire life I've dreamed about being a Disney voice, I don't know anything else I've dreamt about for so long, not even being an actress. For me to be able to be a Disney princess is above and beyond - this'll be here long after I'm gone and part of their songbook and their history. It's such a major part of Americana.
Were there specific Disney princess that captured your imagination as a child?
No, being a princess wasn't the dream, it was just being a voice in a Disney film!
What were your favourite Disney films?
I loved Fantasia, it was the first that I saw and I was mesmerised by it.
It's a lot more about the music than the story.
It is… Well, there's a story with Mickey being naughty and getting in trouble - there's a moral all the time! It's so gorgeously rendered though and what a lovely way to introduce a child to classical music without making them sit down and listen to Bach or Mozart.
Animation style's an important point for The Princess and the Frog, as Disney's first traditional animation in seven years. I don't think I was alone in the audience in seeing it and feeling like it had never been away. Do you think there's room for the traditional animation to come back, even with the technological advances of CGI?
Absolutely. Particularly when you're talking about a fairytale, the warmth that's employed when a hand is sweeping over, the softness in the picture, the ability to capture feeling, I think [these aspects are] really lovely. 3D and CGI is a wonderful medium, particularly when you're talking about something adventurous, but I think when you're talking about a fairytale, I think of a dream state and when I think of my dreams, especially my sweet dreams, they're soft (laughs).
You were very lucky on this film to be working with Ron Clements and Jon Musker, they've got, in Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, two of the greatest Disney films under their belt. What kind of direction do you get when you're voice acting, as opposed to your other film work?
Pretty much the same - 'could we have a little more of this?', or 'what would you think if we tried this?' or 'remember she's falling here'! (laughs) They're a symbiotic pair, they talk to each other with this kind of telepathy, but it's a very easy room to be in and a fun place to work.
But it must be a solitary environment too - did you do any of your voice work with the other actors?
Very little of it. Bruno [Campos] (Prince Naveen) and I did two sessions together because they wanted to get some improvisation going but other than that, no.
Isn't that a strange challenge?
It's very odd. I think it stretches your muscle in a different way because when you're on stage or doing live acting, it's very reactive - here you sometimes have someone who's going to feed you a line if you need it, but you need to create this world yourself. We used to do that naturally as toddlers, so it's a matter of stepping back to that. You're not going to have the same voice lounging on a balcony as you will running away from an alligator in a swamp! (laughs)
How important is the setting of New Orleans to the film?
I think New Orleans is almost its own character. It could have been set anywhere but would it have been as lovely or sublime? I think New Orleans lends itself to fairytale. It's a city of creation, in terms of art, music, cuisine, architecture and it has a very special blend of cultures. And I think the way we've been looking at New Orleans in the last six years has been under the tint of disaster so it's wonderful to sort of wipe some of that away and remember the magic of the city. And having been there to promote the film, they've embraced it.
Is the city on the road to recovery?
They're working at it but it's not there yet. There's a lot of people who still don't have homes, who are displaced, so for them to see their city as a place of wonder and marvel, as opposed to a disaster zone is very important. We don't want to forget because they still need our attention but we want to also say 'You're not a cause, you're your own creation'.
Coming back to the character of Tiana, what makes her such a relatable lead for youngsters?
I was talking to a woman and her granddaughter on the train, they'd been to see it and didn't know who I was but the granddaughter saw I had a Princess and the Frog badge on and was showing me how to play the videogame for the film. And the grandmother said to me: 'What was so wonderful [about Tiana] was that she just seemed so real, she seemed like someone you could know'. I think that's lovely, it makes the princess not only something you dream of but also something accessible. You're looking at a young woman with huge dreams and aspirations who's been told they're out of her reach. And maybe at that time, they were. But she doesn't take 'no' for an answer, she finds a way to make her dreams come true. I think that's a wonderful thing for little girls and boys to see.
For you, was Tiana's determination and ambition something that attracted you to the part, having been a young struggling actress at the start of your career?
You're the first person who put that together! (laughs) I hadn't read the whole script when I signed on and had been working at it for a while when one day I looked at it and said 'Oh my god, this is me!' I know 'the impossible dream', for lack of a worse pun! (laughs) I come from a really small town, I come from somewhere where it makes no sense that I would be on your screen in this way and I had a lot of people around me saying 'Are you kidding? Isn't there something you want to do as a fallback?' But there wasn't - I wasn't going to fall back.
Tiana's not just important as a woman of determination but as the first African-American heroine in Disney's history - that must be an incredible honour to have?
It's a wonderful honour. It's beautiful to be the face and the sound of what that character is and what she means. It's wonderful for little brown girls and boys to see, but it's also wonderful for all children to see, we live in a different time now.
Is the princess in a Disney movie being African-American rightly reflective of our modern world, with a black president of the USA?
This was being worked on way before he came in but yeah, this is more representative of socially what we see. This is not something 50 years ago that many people would have looked it as viable or acceptable - they were incorrect and ignorant but it was a time. Now, I see little blond children, little Asian children walking around in their Tiana dresses and they connect to her, because of who she is. That is a wonderful thing, it expands the definition of beauty.
And it could change things?
Yeah - if there's a school play and the black child wants to be the princess or the fairy godmother, maybe the teachers won't be thinking: 'Well, maybe you could be the witch….' (laughs) Or one of the wise men in the Christmas story! (laughs) The kids aren't thinking this is groundbreaking but this is our princess - that's beautiful.
The Princess and the Frog is released on February 5th