“My parents are monsters.”
It's a sentence our teenage version has probably said, whether we like to admit it or not. Most of the time, we didn't mean it as they're our loving parents, after all, who mean well. However, in the case of Ellian (Rachel Zegler), the tenacious 14-year-old princess leading Spellbound, her parents (Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman) are real monsters, as a spell turned them in colourful, freaky and massive creatures. On top of that, they're also the King and Queen of Lumbria. Ellian faces the daunting task of breaking that mysterious spell to save her family and the kingdom.
This beautiful, uplifting animation, which is now out on Netflix, is the latest movie by director and co-writer Vicky Jenson (Shrek). FILMHOUNDS chatted with Jenson about this magical animation, the casting and filming process when creating animation, and what to do if you hit a story wall as a director/writer.
You directed and co-wrote the feature. Where did the story come from?
It was Skydance who came to me with the story. Their story was about a girl and her parents having trouble in their family. I helped, when I came on board, evolve it into the fairy tale version where we came up with this metaphor for the parents turning into monsters because of some spell. Kids don't understand why parents are yelling all the time. Why are they fighting all the time? Kids think “If I'm just a better kid, maybe if I help them more, they'll stop” and they think it's up to them to fix this problem of their parents.
So I helped evolve that kind of the fairy tale aspect of it where it's a spell that turns them into monsters. Ellian thinks she has to break the spell herself and go on a quest to make that happen and along the way, she gets help from magical creatures. We deliberately made some characters who are helping Ellian feel a little bit like therapists. You have Sunny, who is more of a new-age family therapist, and Luno, who is the more Freudian and practical one who guides the family. They always tell her the truth at whatever stage of her quest. They say: “It's not up to you to break the spell; your parents, the monsters, have to do it, right?” So that's the part where I helped, and that's why they gave me writing credit.
What was it then about this project that made you want to direct it?
I love that the story might not be what people expect, especially in an animated film. Spellbound has that beautiful song in the beginning about wanting things to return to how they were, but is that still possible? Skydance wanted to tell a story like this and stay truthful, brave, and honest. I admired it so much. I had to be part of it.
How do you decide where the musical numbers appear in the stories?
It's an exciting process because I never worked on a musical before. Our music producer, Chris Montan (Frozen), who's been working on everything since The Little Mermaid, suggested that we work with Alan Menken (1991's Beauty and the Beast). Nobody can do it like Alan. We met early on in the writing process. Alan and Glenn Slater (Tangled), our lyricist and our writers, got together very early so they could explain and teach us how musicals work. Like how you tell a story with songs, not just stop a movie and sing.
They were very instrumental in how we told the story. Even later in production, halfway through when we were working intensely on the story, Glenn, our lyricist, came in every day to work with us and break down the songs and story. He was like, “Okay, let's see, are we doing it right? What about this? What about that?” In a way, he was like another writing partner because of his knowledge of music, storytelling, and what his lyrics could and couldn't do. It t was fascinating for me.
When casting for a musical animation like this, do you look for actors and actresses who can sing and act? Or is one of the aspects — whether it's singing or acting — more important than the other?
That's interesting. Indeed, our lead character needs both the acting and the singing, and finding Rachel (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) was just an amazing surprise. We found her very early on. She hadn't done West Side Story yet. Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans) probably saw the same videos on YouTube as we did.
However, in a lot of ways, the acting is incredibly important. The actors needed to have that ability to be very, very authentic. It was important for this movie that they were real performances. We worked together as they do if they would prepare for a play so that everybody could understand the scene's intention and find their way of expressing it. It was more acting than anything else.
In this case, Javier (Dune: Part Two) and Nicole (The Undoing) claimed they couldn't sing. However, they did a beautiful job because you can feel the emotion that they're bringing. It's so honest. Javier just gave so much of himself when he sang. He laughed and said “I can't sing; this is crazy.” However, you can feel the honesty. His performance is very grounded; it just feels real. You know, we didn't have to bring in somebody to sing for him. It's about the feeling.
When you draw the characters and bring them to life, they all need to have their own personalities. How do you decide what the character needs to look like and what physical traits they should have?
You'd make a good director thinking about boots as giving her personality. That's an important detail because those things make a statement on screen. Our character, Ellian, is only 14 and about to turn 15. And she still has like a kid's body, athletic, but she's having kind of gangly long arms. She's not quite a young woman yet.
So things like the boots and the trousers instead of a always wearing a big dress helps you feel her age and awkwardness. We were also thinking about those aspects when creating Sunny (voiced by Tituss Burgess; Central Park) and Luno (voiced by Nathan Lane; 1994's Lion King), the two oracles; you can see it in their clothing. Sunny, the oracle of the sun, his colour is yellow, and there's a big sun on him. Sunny becomes even brighter in this way. Luno's colours are blue and purple. All those visual cues help you to see the characters and figure out who they are. It's really helpful.
In this feature, it's about trying to break the spell, and to do that, they have to bring the spark back together among the entire family. As a director, what do you do when that creative spark might be gone for a second and when you're trying to get back into the creative headspace?
Wow, I never got that question before. Working on a movie for a long time can get a little tiring sometimes. We call it hit the story wall, where you think you've got a story working, and then suddenly, you hit this wall, and can't figure a part out. It can be very frustrating. During moments like that, you have to think about the reason of the movie. That reason is the light at the end of the tunnel.
You know, for me, the reason and the light in this feature is telling the truth. We must face the truth, whether it's what we want to hear. That's true for this kind of work. You know, you're in the movie for a long time, trying to help many people understand these themes and be part of it. Watching people become inspired and coming together is just wonderful. You're all thinking about the movie and the big picture and feel part of it.
Because of the story and animation, the movie is already a family film. Still, the family aspect is even higher because the parents are more prominent in the story. So I was wondering what you hope that both parents, teenagers, or young kids will take away with them after seeing the film.
Yes, the parents are there for the whole journey, which is very different. You usually see them in only a handful of scenes. Kids usually leave their parents and go on their big adventure. However, this is a story of how this family finds its way back to each other and fixes its relationship.
I'm hoping that people take away the idea that it's important to listen to one another and for parents to make sure kids feel loved. It's very easy for parents to get caught up in their animosity toward each other or their problems, or, they feel overworked and forget that the kid needs to be seen and listened to.
One last question: What is next for your filmmaking?
I don't know, but I would love to work with this team. I love Skydance and loved working with Alan, Glenn, and the music team. If the movie does well, we could do a sequel. A couple of us are thinking about how we can do that. I'm so focused on this movie that it's hard to think about anything else.
Spellbound is out now on Netflix.