Best The Princess Diaries Behind The Scenes Facts

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First, Disney reportedly paid author Meg Cabot only $4,000 for the rights to The Princess Diaries back in 1999, with the book being published in 2000. At the time, Cabot was working at NYU as a supervisor in a girls' dorm. Debra Martin Chase and Whitney Houston, who had recently produced Cinderella together in 1997 (with Houston also starring in it), were the ones who pursued the rights to the book after the manuscript landed on their desks.
According to Cabot, her editor got a promotion at her job after Disney optioned The Princess Diaries. Apparently, before that, publishers had no interest in publishing more than the first book in the series. As production got rolling, Cabot told the Guardian that she was then getting checks for "low-to-mid hundreds of thousands" from Disney.
From the start, there were numerous changes suggested for the film adaptation. Meg Cabot recalled getting a call from Disney, saying, "We're really sorry, but in the movie we're going to kill off the father, [because] Julie Andrews wants to play the grandmother, but she doesn't have enough lines so we're going to kill the dad and give her all the dead dad's lines. Is that OK?" Cabot recalled telling them, "Julie Andrews, yeah, you can kill the dad, whatever you have to do!"
The setting was also moved from New York City to San Francisco because director Garry Marshall was reportedly living in California alongside his family and grandchildren at the time, and he requested that production be there so he could still spend time with them.
Julie Andrews was the only choice to play Queen Clarisse Renaldi, with Whitney Houston saying, "She's every little girl's dream ... She's our Cinderella. I know she belongs to England, but she's ours." Meanwhile, Garry Marshall, who was the only choice to direct the film, said, "Julie Andrews, a lady born to wear a tiara. She's very funny [too], so she knows where the jokes are and she's one of the great reactors." This was Andrews' first Disney movie since Mary Poppins.
"The magic she gave to us as little girls, she continues to give to other generations," Debra Martin Chase said in an interview for the DVD extras.
Scarlett Johansson, January Jones, and Emmy Rossum were some of the actors considered for the role of Mia Thermopolis. Juliette Lewis, Reese Witherspoon, Claire Danes, and more also reportedly turned down the role.
Casting director Donna Morong recalled to Cosmopolitan that Anne was always "on [their] radar" but she wasn't immediately available to star in the movie.
While casting the role of Mia Thermopolis, producer Debra Martin Chase said she kept saying they needed to find "the next Audrey Hepburn." Anne Hathaway only auditioned once for The Princess Diaries, with Garry Marshall and producers immediately falling in love with her. In the DVD extras for the movie, Hathaway recalled getting cast, saying, "Garry has two granddaughters, who at the time were five years old, and he showed them the audition tapes, and they decided I had the best princess hair."
Speaking about finding Hathaway, Marshall said, "Anne Hathaway, for me, combines two people I love very much: Judy Garland and Harpo Marx. It's a strange combo she has, but she has those eyes that can swing me away from comedy to drama." He added, "Annie was really the only young girl who could do both sides of the story of Princess Diaries."Meanwhile, Julie Andrews said Hathaway reminded her of Audrey Hepburn and Julia Roberts.
With The Princess Diaries being Anne Hathaway's first major movie role, producer Debra Martin Chase said Julie Andrews was always looking for ways to help teach Anne how a film set worked. Debra recalled to Cosmopolitan, "One day we filmed Julie's scenes first so she could leave, and Annie was going to do the rest of the scene with Julie's stand-in. Julie goes off, and a few minutes later she comes back in her robe and slippers with a cup of tea, and she's like, 'No, I'm going to read with Annie. I want her to learn how to do it right.'"
Speaking about meeting Andrews for the first time, Hathaway said, "I was meeting my idol. I was meeting someone who I'd looked up to. And she was everything I had hoped she would be and more, because in addition to being Julie Andrews, she was also just Julie."
Patrick Flueger originally auditioned for another character, but Garry Marshall wrote him a new (and bigger) part, which turned into creating Jeremiah Hart. Like Anne Hathaway, The Princess Diaries was Patrick's first major movie role.
Patrick has since gone on to star as Adam Ruzek in Chicago P.D. for 12 seasons.
The Princess Diaries was filmed on Stage 2 on the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, CA. It was the same stage where Julie Andrews filmed Mary Poppins in 1963. In 2001, just before The Princess Diaries was released in theaters, the stage was renamed "The Julie Andrews Soundstage," thus honoring her achievements in Disney films.
At the soundstage's rededication ceremony, the Disneyland Band played music from Mary Poppins, with Dick Van Dyke, Richard Sherman, and Roy E. Disney speaking at the event, too. In his speech, Dyke said, "[Julie] is not only talented and graceful and beautiful, but royalty in every sense of the word."While filming The Princess Diaries, Marshall actually lived in the house that Andrews lived in while filming Mary Poppins. At the time Andrews lived there, the house was owned by Disney. However, Marshall had owned the house since 1974.
While a majority of the movie was filmed on the Disney Studios lot, real San Francisco exteriors were used, too. Notably, Engine Company No. 43, the vintage firehouse that Mia and Helen (Caroline Goodall) live in, is real, and you can visit it. Production designer Mayne Berke said the team looked at all 25 of San Francisco's vintage fire houses before they settled on No. 43. The interior was recreated on the soundstage.
Now, Engine 43 is an art studio, with the family who lives there now having resided in it since 2015. The ground floor serves as a studio, and it's a communal artists' space.
The entire cast was obviously huge fans of Julie Andrews prior to filming, with Mandy Moore even revealing she asked her to sign a The Sound of Music CD when they first met on set. Moore told MTV, "I tapped her on the shoulder and was like, 'Excuse me, Miss Andrews, can you sign my CD?' and it was my little Sound of Music CD I'd had in my collection forever."
Moore added, "She signed it, and I took a picture with her, and I was just so star-struck. She's so beautiful and so wonderful and amazing."
The first two days of filming were when Anne Hathaway did all of the scenes before Mia's makeover, which happens in the middle of the film. In the DVD extras for The Princess Diaries, Hathaway recalled that she would hear extras whispering, "Why did she get the part? I'm so much better looking than her." When Hathaway eventually arrived on set in the post-makeover look, she said people didn't recognize her immediately.
"My hair was done. My makeup was done, and people didn't recognize me. It was interesting," Hathaway explained. "But when we saw the way that people's reactions changed, Garry and I looked at each other and we said, 'Yup! We have a movie here. This is good.'"
When Paolo (Larry Miller) breaks the hairbrush during Mia's makeover, Miller actually had to snap the brush during filming. Anne Hathaway told Vanity Fair, "They pre-broke the brush, and it was supposed to break kind of easily, but it didn't quite happen." Since the brush didn't break immediately, the final take includes Miller and Hathaway improvising, leading up to Miller finally breaking the brush.
"I don't remember if the 'Ow' was real, or if I was just buying him some time," Hathaway added. "But the brush was being stubborn that day."
When Mia and her mom, Helen, throw darts at balloons filled with paint, there was actually a prop master offscreen shooting the balloons with a BB gun so they would pop. Production designer Mayne Berke told Cosmopolitan that they didn't "test it beforehand" whether or not it would be easy for the actors to pop the balloons, and it ended up being harder than it looked.
During dinner, when Mia breaks her champagne glass while trying to get everyone's attention, the waiter who says, "It happens all the time," is played by Allan Kent, who also had the same line in Pretty Woman when Vivian (Julia Roberts) flings a snail's shell across the room. Both The Princess Diaries and Pretty Woman were directed by Garry Marshall.
Kent also appears in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement and says the exact same thing when Mia's ring flies off her hand, and he appears as the footman who catches it.Kent also appeared in Marshall's Runaway Bride.
While René Auberjonois voices Philippe Renaldi, Mia's father, during the voiceover when Mia is reading his letter, Anne Hathaway's real dad, Gerald Hathaway, was used as the picture of Philippe that is seen in the film.
Auberjonois was best known for playing Odo in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Clayton Endicott III on Benson, and Paul Lewiston on Boston Legal. He died in 2019.
Garry Marshall's daughter and granddaughters appear in The Princess Diaries. First, Kathleen Marshall plays Charlotte, Clarisse's secretary. Then, his twin granddaughters appear as the young girls who ask for Mia's autograph outside of school after her secret is revealed.
Anne Hathaway's clutzy nature was something that was written into the script, and a lot of it was improvised on set. Notably, the moment when Lilly (Heather Matarazzo) and Mia are talking on the bleachers in the rain, and Mia slips and falls, was something that happened in the moment on set.
In the DVD extras for the film, Garry Marshall said, "You know with Audrey Hepburn, Julia Roberts, they all have a certain quality, but [Anne] has the ability to fall down ... She tripped at the audition, fell off the chair. Julia falls pretty good. I have a theory that pretty girls who don't mind flying through the air actually have a better shot at success."
Garry Marshall said he ran the set of The Princess Diaries "like a camp" because there were so many young people on set. For each holiday that happened while filming, he would do something special. For Halloween, they had a pumpkin carving contest. Marshall's assistants created his trailer out of a pumpkin, while the special effects department made their pumpkin explode.
"My pumpkin was absolutely horrible," Anne Hathaway said in the DVD extras for the movie. "I cannot draw or do crafty things to save my life."
For Thanksgiving, they had their own parade where Julie Andrews judged the contest. Anne Hathaway showed up dressed as Garry Marshall's Thanksgiving Day dinner table and won a prize, with Marshall calling it the "most original."
Meanwhile, Marshall said that the "editing team went all out" for the parade, as they showed up in Genovian cars. And Hathaway recalled the grips making a "75-foot-tall snowman, complete with a Santa Claus on top."
Julie Andrews helped production designer Mayne Berke design Queen Clarisse's rose garden. "Julie wanted to talk to me about all the sets. She said, 'You know I'm a rose aficionado,'" Berke told Cosmopolitan. Andrews was also consulted when it came to some of the royalty aspects of the movie. In 2000, the same year The Princess Diaries was filmed, Andrews was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II.
"Julie helped out a lot," Anne Hathaway said in the DVD extras when explaining how they portrayed Mia turning into a princess. Garry Marshall added, "Julie is totally in charge on this picture. 'Is the flower this way?' 'What kind of fork is it?' 'Is this the right jewelry box?'"
And finally, the tiara and jewelry Julie Andrews wears in the last scenes of the film reportedly consisted of $500,000 worth of diamonds, which were loaned to the production by jeweler Harry Winston. Andrews said a security guard was on standby and followed her around while she was wearing the diamonds.
Both Queen Clarisse and Princess Mia's tiaras were custom-made for The Princess Diaries, with both now being preserved in the Walt Disney archives.
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