Directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard, Animator Glen Keane and the voice of Rapunzel herself, Mandy Moore talk Tangled

Disney Studios, famous for updating and reinventing the classic fairytale into some of this century’s most memorable films, has done it again. This time they’ve bought to life the well know story of the girl with the long hair Rapunzel, in Disney studio’s 50th animated picture Tangled. We were lucky enough to be present as some of Disney’s best Directors and most famous animators gathered together with the voice of Rapunzel herself, the lovely Mandy more to talk favourite Disney characters, the challenges of animation and how this could quite possibly be Disney’s finest animation to date.

Tangled is an action-packed, swashbuckling, animated musical comedy about the girl behind 70 feet of magical, golden hair. A princess stolen from her parents’ castle as a baby, Rapunzel (voice of Mandy Moore) is locked in a hidden tower longing for adventure Now an imaginative and determined teenager, she takes off on a hilarious, hair-raising escapade with the help of a dashing bandit (voice of Zachary Levi). With the secret of her royal heritage hanging in the balance and her captor in pursuit, Rapunzel and her cohort find adventure, heart, humor, and hair… lots of hair. With original music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Glenn Slater, this comedic re-imagining of the classic Brothers Grimm fairytale comes to theaters in Disney Digital 3D™.

So many glorious classic stories have been bought back to life by Disney since 1937. Why is it that fairytales are such a perfect fit for Disney?

Nathan Greno: I guess it’s become a tradition at the studio, at least for Byron and I we were very aware when you say Aladdin, or Beauty and The Beast, you always think of the Disney version. So when we took on the story of Rapunzel we kept in mind that if you do a good job, these films live on forever and potentially become the definitive version of that story. Disney do it so sincerely and with so much emotion, unlike something like the Shrek films that poke fun at the fairytales and has a snarky attitude about it, and I love that our studio doesn’t do that, we embrace what is so great about these classic stories.

Byron Howard: I think people were worried that when we said we wanted to make a contemporary version of Rapunzel, people automatically think that contemporary and modern means cynical, but if you watch tangled, you’ll see that it’s very heartfelt. We want these films to outlive us so we try not to make them too topical or too tied to the time in which they’re made. Glen, you’ve done so much in you’re 35 years with the studio, but you’re achievements in this film must give you tremendous satisfaction?

Glen Keane: For me this film is a marathon, and something I was starting to think about and develop in 1996, so to see it come to fruition is really wonderful particularly when my normal reaction to one of the films that I’ve worked on, is that the more times I see it, the more mistakes I see. However with this film every time I see it, it gets better and I keep seeing more and more wonderful little touches that the animators have put into the animation and I’m more and more convinced that this is the best animation Disney have ever done. I’m astounded by it. I don’t know how to animate on the computer, but luckily I had other people working with me that love animation but also love and respect hand drawing which is Disney’s heritage. They found tools and ways for me to be able to participate and contribute to the animation, like drawing over the top of the computer and saying things like: Exaggerate this gesture more, or open up this eye a little bit more. Then the animators would have those drawings waiting for them so that they could apply and adapt them to the animation,it was our goal to find ways to mix the best of both world’s, hand drawn and animation.

Mandy, you’ve joined an elite club of Disney Princess, what does that mean to you and who was your favourite Disney Princess from you’re childhood?

Mandy Moore: I sit here and think what little girl doesn’t dream about being a Disney princess. It’s mind boggling. It’s so cool.I grew up in Orlando so I feel like it’s in my blood and films like the Little Mermaid and Aladdin are such seminal parts of my childhood. I would have to say The Little Mermaid, is my favourite and the first recollection I have of going to the movie theatre, and owning the VHS and wearing it out. I actually had Little Mermaid bedsheets. Glen, had there been any previous efforts on your part to bring this story to life?

Glen Keane: There’s a weird thing with me and characters with hair. From Ariel to Pocahontas, I’m trying to make up for some loss in my life! I find that you’re drawn to certain stories and fairytales have deep roots. They connect really deeply to you. I love characters that believe the impossible is possible. At one point I used to animate the villains, but with The Little Mermaid, Ariel called to me and I found myself falling in love with characters who had that burning desire inside of them. I think that’s what lead me to this story, which led me to Joe Grant, who was head of story on Snow White, and was still working at Disney up until about six years ago. I asked him, did you and Walt work on this? He said; “Oh yeah we tried working on Rapunzel but it was such a hard nut to crack, that we just put it down! “It’s hard to crack because they just take place in a tower, so it was so wonderful that Byron and Jason brought Rapunzel out of her tower and gave it a new lease of life.

Given that you have all this technology at your disposal, do you ever find yourself thinking what would Jo, or Olly or Frank have done in this situation so that while you’re also using cutting edge technology, you’re also using the very best traditions of Disney animation.

Glen Keane: Well Frank and Olly were always saying to me, “Glen, you’re going to do greater things than us some day” and I always dismissed it, but in this film, Mandy’s performance was so sincere and so moving, there is a scene where she is singing to Flynn after he’s died and it was so deep and we had a group of girl animators who wanted those scenes. After the little Mermaid, Olly said that they would never have animated it that way, because we animated some scenes where Ariel’s face looked kind of ugly when she was upset and in Olly’s day they always tried to make everything pretty. When Rapunzel is looking into Flynn’s eyes and it was so beautiful and moving and there were tears in peoples eyes.

I have a suspicion that this is going to end up as a life stage show, would you be up for the stage production?

Byron Howard: Whats great about working for Disney is that you see these animations live past the cinema, like the first time we saw Flynn and Rapunzel in the theme parks, it was an amazing day for us. Before the film had come out there were lines of families wanting to meet these new castles, it was an amazing thing. It has the potential to become a great stage show with the great music this film has by Alan Menken.

Mandy Moore: I’ve always loved the idea of being on Broadway, it’s a lifelong dream for me, but I would have to figure out what to do with the hair, they would have to figure out some sort of trick for me to carry it, It would give me a huge neck with the weight!

Is Flynn based on Errol Flynn by any chance?

Nathan Greno: We were trying to think of what characters we liked, and used a lot of sources. When you look back at some of the Disney Princes, a lot of them are really soft and not that cool. They’re good guys, and we wanted to take it to the extreme, and we like cocky, arrogant characters. There were people in our building that were hearing rumours about Flynn being an arrogant, ladies man thief, and were getting worried. The trick is if you have a cocky character like that, you have to hit him over the head with a frying pan a dozen times, and he needs to pay for his arrogance, and if those sorts of characters, if they’re done right, they can be so funny. So there were bits of Han Solo in there, and a bit of Gene Kelly.

Who were your influences for the wicked witch? Is Cher one of them?

Byron Howard: It’s true! Maybe because she’s too Gothic and exotic looking. She was one of the people we looked at. She was a hard character to crack, and Glen struggled with that for years. In this final version of Tangled, she’s not really a witch or have magic, she can only do this one thing with the hair, so we had to make her a very compelling, intelligent and manipulative character so that she can convince this poor girl that she is really her Mother. In order to contrast her to Rapunzel’s petite look, we gave her a voluptuous, tall exotic look right down to the curly hair, we were trying to say visually, this is not Rapunzel’s Mother, whereas the Queen was designed almost identical to Rapunzel’s facial features.

Mandy, we speak to many actors that say doing an animation is harder than they think, but was the singing element a security blanket for you?

Mandy Moore: Yeah, I actually though, how hard can this be? But singing in character is os much harder, being in the studio, singing, trying to be in a certain head space was challenging. Luckily Alan Menken is very hands on, he’s very humble and knows what he wants and how to get it out of you that I trusted that I was in safe hands, so I just presented myself to him and said. “Cool, just tell me what you need!” There were different accents and certain words that need to be punctuated. The actual voices part, I was disappointed  that the actors weren’t going to be working together, but I was lucky I had these guys (Byron Howard and Nathan Greno ) who were so thorough and explained everything to me and they were fantastic and it was nice to know that I had them on my side.I felt slightly crazy at the end of the day after talking to myself for several hours, but it was a blast to use you’re imagination like that.

Mandy, how have you managed not to succumb to the temptations in you’re industry and to keep you’re name out of the gossip columns?

Mandy Moore: Oh Gosh, I’m a boring homebody first and foremost, but I love my parents and I have a really great strong support system in my family, and my parents sacrificed so much for me to realise this dream that I had at a really young age, which has kept my feet on the ground and make me really appreciate this job and not take it for granted. Also being busy with work but also realising the difference between working and my private life, and finding that balance is the key to finding some groundedness in your life.

What Classic Disney films did you dip into for the look of this film?

Byron Howard: Right across from our office is the Disney archives, and we looked at the huge, jewelled book from Sleeping Beauty, with the amazing Ivan Earl illustrations and the craft and the artistry and the care that they put into these films, we knew we had to put as much care into this film and make this film even better. We got our influences from the colours of the 50’s from films like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty because we knew even though we were making a contemporary film, that we wanted some of that nostalgia too, because we know people have very high expectations for Disney films.

Glen Keane: We had a daily room in the studio where the animators got together and everybody would crowd into a small romm and show their work. On the walls we would have drawings from the past features like Bambi and Captain Cook and Cinderella, because there was this whole new generation of animators who had come to the studio who didn’t have a connection with the roots of Disney. We wanted them to embrace that and not feel like they are separate but that they are standing on the shoulders of that whole generation of animators and teachers, so there was a lot of teaching and training because they felt like they missed that time.

Dan Fogleman is credited with this script and he’s really hot in action at the moment, but action is very different to animation so I was wondering if you guys ever saw a whole script by Dan what did he inherit and what changes did he make?

Mandy Moore: I never saw a full script, partly because of the way we work, you only work for about 4 or five hours, but there’s so much to fit inside this time and so many ways to go about the lines of dialogue and you would only get through certain portions of the film at a time, so I never read anything from front to back, and you guys (Byron Howard and Nathan Greno) must have told me the story like four hundred times, and its only when you see the film on screen that it all really comes together and makes sense.

So Nathan and Byron what magic dust did Dan sprinkle on the script?

Byron Howard: In animation there is there is an evolution that happens during the making of the film, there will be rough drafts of the film, and then the story artists are writers to and so they’re contributing and then we do screenings for the studio for a very passionate crew who will tell you exactly what they don’t like so the script is evolving all the time and then Dan goes back and edits it and the final script appears very late. Dan is a super sharp funny guy and so much of this movie we thank him for. It was his idea to have Flynn and Rapunzel sparring and a having a little bit of a feud, because not everybody is into the romance thing or the princess thing and we have to watch these two onscreen together for a long time, and we wanted it to crackle with smartness.

As someone who thinks Maximus (the horse) should be Oscar nominated, can I ask about the challenges and reasons for having silent animal characters?

Byron Howard: Nathan and I love classic, silent films, like Harold Lloyd, and we said wouldn’t it be great to stick to the Sleeping Beauty rules of animation, where the animals don’t talk, but they’re very expressive. We got so many compliments about that.

Glen Keane: Right from the start you’ve got this character, this horse, who’s eyes are on the wrong part of his head because he’s looking for predators, he’s basically a super cop, and you have to design it like half horse, half dog and matter of fact, the first version the characters that rescue Rapunzel had a dog, and one of the first things we did was throw out the dog and put in a horse, and then I realised it was like a horse and a bloodhound, so it was perfect and there was just something about this character that was so fun and we made him have a strong jaw and he’s tough with an attitude and then it’s even perfect when Rapunzel melts him and everyone loved that scene!

Tangled Film Page | Tangled Review | Mandy Moore Image Library

TANGLED IS OUT IN UK CINEMA’S ON THE 28TH OF JANUARY