00:00Hi, nice to meet you.
00:01Hi Valizia, I do love your backdrop, that's so lovely, thank you.
00:05Thank you, you can see that, but under me there's sea, because I'm in Cannes, so...
00:11Oh, okay, gotcha.
00:12I'm literally over the sea, yeah.
00:15Gotcha.
00:28I always love Ariel for her curiosity, I think it's one of her best qualities.
00:35In your opinion, how can we stay curious, and how you do that, because when we've grown
00:40up, it's not so ideal.
00:41Yes, I love that sort of young spirit that she has, you know, that she's fearless about
00:47wanting to sort of reach past her world to another world, not being afraid of the other
00:53people up there, the human people.
00:57You know, that curiosity that she has is inspiring.
01:02Hopefully it's inspiring to young people watching the film, too.
01:06I think that she feels like an outsider, feels like she doesn't belong.
01:11And has her own sort of path that she wants to take, her own journey, it's inspiring to
01:18me.
01:19And it reminds you that it's actually, you know, you have to go with what you're feeling,
01:23your gut, and, you know, and not be afraid.
01:27You know, she's taught by everyone around her to be afraid of these people up there.
01:32It's such a contemporary theme, though, to learn not to be afraid of people that are different
01:37than you.
01:38And I think that that theme about prejudice and, and fearing others, and learning not
01:45to, is a very contemporary and really timely for today.
01:49This is also, your movie takes a next step because this is not only a story about finding
01:58our own voice, but also, I think, about learning how to let our voice be heard.
02:05Again, it's not easy.
02:06How can we do that?
02:07Yes.
02:07Well, I mean, it's, it's fascinating how in this film, obviously, she loses her voice,
02:12but then regains it, and in that does find her voice.
02:16I mean, there's a beautiful line that Triton says at the end, her father Triton says to
02:21her, you know, you shouldn't have had to lose your voice to be heard.
02:25And I think that's powerful.
02:28You know, she goes, you know, she, she's, listen, she's a teenager in this movie.
02:31She does impulsive things.
02:32She chooses to give up her mermaid gifts so that she can get what she wants and then realizes,
02:38oh, what have I done?
02:39I've made this huge mistake.
02:41But it's impulsive as a kid would be, you know, they don't know the consequences.
02:46But what's, what's so, I don't know, very moving to me about the story is that she truly
02:52believes that she's right.
02:54And, and I think, and, and, and everyone around her doesn't believe that she is.
02:59And she proves them wrong and finds her voice and, and, and, and shows that, you know, that
03:05it's, the things can, are starting to change.
03:07It's like a, it's a beginning, as she says in the film.
03:10You know, one thing so true about musicals.
03:13And for many of my generation, Under the Sea was one of the first big musical number that
03:20we experienced.
03:22So how was for you making that musical number in, in this movie?
03:28That was, honestly, the most complicated musical number I've ever done, because we had one
03:34live actor, and it's a huge, massive production number.
03:38And one, so I, when I started this, I thought, this is the most challenging part of this entire
03:42film.
03:42How are we going to make this work?
03:45And I really thought to myself, you know what, I'm going to go back to what Walt Disney did.
03:50I remember that Walt Disney had worked with the Ballet Rus' company to create Fantasia, specifically
03:57this one sequence, The Nutcracker Suite.
04:00And I thought, you know what, it's so smart because his animators can use those dancers
04:06as a template.
04:07So I brought the Alvin Ailey Foundation over to London and worked with their dancers, this
04:13beautiful company of dancers, to create the musical number.
04:17And they replicated all these different sea creatures.
04:20We had chosen all these interesting sea creatures in advance, all the ones that we felt lent themselves
04:25to dance.
04:26And then they replicated all their moves, and then our CGI artists worked from all of their,
04:32the template for all of the moves.
04:34So that way we could, you know, we could build it on something, so we'd have something tangible
04:39to work from, so that it wouldn't just be just sort of like, you know, a random whatever,
04:44sort of a CGI exercise.
04:46It became actually a proper production number that we could actually control.
04:50Myself, John DeLuca, and our two choreographers, Joey Pizzi and Tara Nicole.
04:55We didn't know that back then, but I realized that Ariel is also a little bit nerd because
05:02she collects so many things.
05:03I want to know, do you collect stuff too?
05:06Do you have a collection of something?
05:07Do you collect something or not?
05:09That's so interesting.
05:10I really don't collect things.
05:12I know, you know, I think it's something maybe, I mean, a lot of people collect things,
05:18of course.
05:18It seems like something when I was young I did, you know, like, you know, I would collect
05:22like baseball cards and things like that and coins.
05:25I had all kinds of fun things.
05:27But as I get older, I want less things, like just so, you know, less.
05:34So, but it is lovely that she shares that with Eric in our film.
05:38They both are adventurers and collectors and they want things from other worlds.
05:42It's really, it's a lovely sort of connection between the two of them.
05:46And between Triton and Ursula, there's a struggle for power.
05:51It's interesting.
05:53In Italy, we had a politician who said that power consumes people who don't have it.
05:58So how did you manage to tell that story?
06:02Well, we made them in this, in this version, we made them brother and sister.
06:05So there's a sibling rivalry.
06:07And, you know, she's been, Ursula has been banished by Triton to this lair for her misdeeds.
06:14and there is a sense of revenge from Ursula.
06:19And she wants to get back.
06:21And so she uses Ariel to get back at Triton.
06:23It's all about that and sort of her lust for power.
06:26But it's mostly to get back at her brother.
06:30Of course, that doesn't go how she expects it to go.
06:35But, you know, she feels injured, you know, and doesn't,
06:40she feels like the black sheep of the family
06:43and doesn't feel she belongs.
06:44What I love about her, what Melissa was able to do,
06:47was to bring not only humor to the role,
06:50which, of course, she is so funny and so,
06:53so mercurial and wonderful to watch,
06:56but she was able to bring a great deal of depth to the character.
07:00So you felt, you feel that hurt that she has
07:04and that she's acting out on that.
07:06Thank you so much.
07:07Thank you.
07:08Thank you.
07:08Bye.
07:09Nice to meet you.
07:09Thank you.
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