With Disney returning to good old-fashioned animation for the first time in years, it’s back to beautifully drawn characters and stirring songs capturing hearts.
The Oscar-nominated The Princess and the Frog is in cinemas 5th February, featuring a host of loveable characters from New Orleans and the surrounding bayou. The Brothers Grimm fairy tale has been brought to a jazz-tinged 1920s New Orleans with a twist. Following in the footsteps of Cinderella and Belle, our heroine Tiana is determined to forge her own way in life. Unlike her spoilt best friend Charlotte, the debutante of the city, her only dream is to save enough from her two jobs to open her own restaurant. This leads her to strike a deal with the feckless and cut-off Prince Naveen, transformed into a frog by the evil voodoo doctor. Unfortunately, as the hard-working waitress isn’t actually a princess, one slimy kiss finds them both in an amphibious state.
Playing Tiana is Tony Award-winning Broadway star Anika Noni Rose, famed for Caroline, or Change on the stage, and being one of the Dreamgirls alongside Beyonce Knowles and Jennifer Hudson. The elegant actress lends her gorgeous singing voice to Randy Newman’s original songs, bringing life to the sparky frog princess.
At the London press conference, Anika spoke of her unadulterated joy at becoming a Disney princess, making her seem much younger than her impossible-to-believe 37 years. “It was truly – and it sounds really corny – a dream come true, as it was something I had wanted to do since I was a very little person,” she enthused. “I saw Fantasia when I was two, and I was so moved by the imagery and the music, and my mother told me that when I was in my nightgown, I was convinced I was a dancing mushroom. I felt like I was a part of that landscape, and I always wanted to do a Disney film.”
She added: “It occured to me about two months ago, that there is nothing in the world I could think of that I always wanted to do, not even acting. Because when I thought of it, I wasn’t thinking about being an actor, it didn’t occur to me at the time that’s what it was. So for me it’s been a magnificent experience. The realisation of a dream, which is what Disney represents anyway.”
Anika then went on to reveal she didn’t have grand expectations when she was called by Disney: “I wasn’t planning on being a princess. I thought I’d be like a weeping willow or something – ‘oh my gosh, you cry so beautifully!’ I went in and had my general meeting with Disney in 2004, and they had seen the show [Caroline, Or Change].” She admits that having Disney in her veins, she went in with a plan. “I didn’t know what they were calling me in for, so I had a voice ready. I was ready to be a tick,” she laughs. “I knew what the tick was going to sound like when it bit somebody – I was prepared! Who knew that it was going to end up with me being someone beautiful, regal and Southern and charming. I was ready to be loud, biting into people, drawing blood!”
With her expressive voice making her frog form as delightful as her gorgeous human form, Anika explained her method of nailing the New Orleans drawl: “Accents are like music to me. You can learn a song, learn the lyrics, the notes, but if you don’t have the rhythm, then you don’t have the song. I’ve always been, awfully as a child, imitated people. I would walk through the mall behind people, imitating them, to the chagrin of my mother! I love to listen, and when I travel I tape people everywhere I go, so at home I have tapes of people from different places if I need them.”
The Connecticut-born performer talked about how she found the voice of Tiana: “I did a lot of calling around in New Orleans, listening to people’s voices, in different areas without telling them why, just to hear the different sounds and figure out what I wanted her to sound like.” Having visited New Orleans before, she listened to a lot of music from the jazz-era. When it came to finding the character, Anika felt prepared. “It was very clear to me who she was, similar to my own journey in life,” she revealed. “Being an actor from a small town, wanting to enter this profession with so many naysayers around me saying it was impossible, don’t you want something to fall back on. No, I didn’t! This is what I wanted to do, and I did. I worked at it and made it happen, so at some point – it didn’t hit me immediately – but our journey of creating Tiana was also my journey. So the preparation was life. It doesn’t often happy, but I was very lucky.” She joked that directors Ron Clements and John Musker must have “a teenage girl in their breast pocket to inform them every now and then!”
Becky Reed
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