{"id":47437,"date":"2024-03-08T11:00:44","date_gmt":"2024-03-08T10:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=2004280"},"modified":"2024-03-08T11:30:57","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T10:30:57","slug":"robin-wright-on-damsel-i-think-its-a-really-good-message-for-young-girls","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/robin-wright-on-damsel-i-think-its-a-really-good-message-for-young-girls\/","title":{"rendered":"Robin Wright on Damsel: \u2018I think it\u2019s a really good message for young girls\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wright chats about the new Netflix fantasy, Millie Bobby Brown and reuniting with Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis for a new film 30 years after Forrest Gump. <\/p>

By Patrick Cremona\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 08 March 2024 at 10:00 AM<\/p>

\n\n

Robin Wright is responsible for playing one of the most iconic princesses to ever grace the silver screen.<\/p>\n

Back in 1987 \u2013 towards the beginning of her impressive and varied acting career \u2013 Wright took on the key role of Princess Buttercup in Rob Reiner\u2019s classic fantasy comedy The Princess Bride, a role which remains one of her most well-known credits to this day.<\/p>\n

Now, some 37 years later, she\u2019s returned to the fairytale genre for Netflix\u2019s new action-adventure flick Damsel<\/a>, only this time she\u2019s approaching things from the other side.<\/p>\n

In the film \u2013 which has just arrived on the streamer \u2013 she plays the wicked Queen Isabelel, who is responsible for throwing Millie Bobby Brown\u2019s Princess Elodie into a cave, where she\u2019s greeted by a terrifying fire-breathing dragon.<\/p>\n

Wright wasn\u2019t initially thinking about the connection between the two films when she first signed on, but now that it\u2019s been pointed out she can\u2019t help but wonder if her two characters are somehow linked, as she explains during an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody recently in the press brought up the question, do you think Queen Isabelel is the older Princess Buttercup?\u201d she muses. \u201cAnd I said, \u2018No, please say no, that can\u2019t be! That\u2019s blasphemy, don\u2019t even think of such things!\u2019 And then we were all giggling, saying maybe she did grow up to be Queen Isabelle and she just became more angry!\u201d<\/p>

In truth, the thing that attracted Wright to the part was not any connection to her previous role but a conversation she had with the film\u2019s Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, whose previous directing credits include 28 Weeks Later and Intruders.<\/p>\n

Wright explains that Fresnadillo was eager to get across the fact that he wanted to do something a little different from the traditional fairytale, to subvert some of the tropes of the genre that we\u2019re so used to seeing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way he was describing to me how this was going to be an unconventional fairytale and in what way it was going to be, that was enticing,\u201d she says. \u201cI just was like, this is different. He\u2019s turning it on its head a little bit, the quintessential template.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe stepped out of the box with these two women, and I think it\u2019s a really good message for young girls: It\u2019s not a damsel in distress that\u2019s being rescued by somebody, it\u2019s self-survival.\u201d<\/p>\n

The role of the young woman who finds herself fighting for survival is played by the aforementioned Millie Bobby Brown \u2013 a star whose work facing Demogorgons and the like in Stranger Things<\/a> will no doubt have prepared her well for the threat of a fire-breathing dragon.<\/p>\n

Wright had seen some of Brown\u2019s work in the early seasons of the sci-fi juggernaut \u2013 \u201cwhen she was a little wee one\u201d \u2013 and was very impressed working alongside her on the new film.<\/p>\n

\"Damsel.\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Damsel. Millie Bobby Brown as Elodie in Damsel.<\/span><\/figcaption> John Wilson\/Netflix <\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s so enigmatic [and] has an incredible presence on screen,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd so authentic, right? There\u2019s not a false bone in her body when she delivers lines. She\u2019s very connected. When I met her, she was 18 or 19 years old, a young woman, and look at all that she\u2019s accomplished. It\u2019s pretty impressive!\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Wright\u2019s time on set was relatively limited \u2013 she worked around seven days scattered throughout the shoot \u2013 she nonetheless found herself striking up a bond with Brown, especially when she arrived to shoot some scenes in Portugal, which was the first time they were able to \u201crelax and giggle\u201d.<\/p>\n

And while Queen Isabelle and Princess Elodie have rather an antagonistic relationship in the film, the same is not true for that between Wright and Brown.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually felt more like her surrogate mother,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause she was barefoot the whole movie! I was like, \u2018Get some flip flops, make sure she puts those on in between takes.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The supporting cast for the film also includes everyone from Love Simon star Nick Robinson to two-time Oscar nominee Angela Bassett, and there was one other cast member Wright was especially keen to work with again: Ray Winstone.<\/p>\n

The pair had previously co-starred in the 2007 motion-capture film Beowolf, and Wright says she\u2019s a huge fan of the English actor\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\u201cSexy Beast is one of my most favourite movies of all time,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve never been really starstruck in my life. But when I first met Ray, I was starstruck, because I love that movie so much.\u201d<\/p>\n