Three Wishes for Cinderella was in need of its leading actress when the miracle happened.
Director Cecilie Mosli couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity she had to work with pop star Astrid S in Three Wishes for Cinderella. While speaking with ComingSoon, Mosli detailed the casting process and how she found the perfect woman for the protagonist, a task easier said than done. Additionally, the director explained the difficulties the filming crew had to overcome in shooting the movie on location in the Norwegian mountains. The film hits the digital market and retails in the U.S. and Canada starting October 18.
“Since her father’s death, the kind-hearted but also courageous Cinderella lives with her cruel stepmother and spoiled stepsister, Dora, who treat her like a servant in her own house. During one of her escapes to the forest, Cinderella prevents a couple of men from hunting, among them, the handsome prince of the kingdom. They immediately feel attracted to each other, but he is expected to find a suitable bride at the next royal ball, which Cinderella is now allowed to attend. Equipped with a great deal of courage and empowered by her three magical acorns, she decides to stand up for herself and determine her own fate. Is she able to break free from her stepmother’s tyranny and find true love?”
Tudor Leonte: I have to confess, I really liked your movie. I enjoyed it especially since it features some very nice frames and composition. Where did the shooting occur?
Cecilie Mosli: We shot the main part in Norway. We shot in the mountains in the Jotunheimen National Park in Norway, the interiors and the surroundings of the farm were in the Lillehammer Art Museum. and then the castle is shot in Lithuania, but of course, put in the mountains in Norway.
All those places look astonishing. I was told by the cast you shot outside. Right?
Yes, absolutely. The wind you see is true and the snow is true for sure. Due to the weather, the challenge was true. It was colder shooting it than it looks, and that says a lot. [Laugh].
Are also the Northern Lights true? Did you manage to capture them?
The Northern Lights are shot, actually, because I grew up on the very top north of Norway where we have a lot of Northern Lights. They were shot up there by a brilliant guy who does the Northern Lights shots. So they are for real and from my district. He’s a Sami man from up North who is a specialist in shooting the Northern Lights. I feel proud that the Northern Lights are from my part of the country.
They look gorgeous. Again, congrats.
They are true. It’s nothing artificial about those. It’s true Northern Lights.
I believe it again, they look amazing and gorgeous. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is a remake of the 1973 Czech movie, right?
Yes. It was Czech-Slovakian, East German. It was before the Wall came down. Yeah.
When the Czech Republic and Slovakia were still together. How did you come up with this project?
It was the producers at Storm Studios that came to me with it and that hit me so hard because that film is a big tradition in Norway. Growing up in the seventies and the eighties in Norway, we only had one channel. The films with a female-led part who was strong and had a lot of courage and could ride horses and shoot, it was like heaven to a young girl. Since I’ve been watching it with my kids, and while growing up in Norway, you watch it every Christmas Eve, everyone does it in Norway. I could see that it was outdated, but I wanted so much to tell this story again because it was very modern for its time.
Now I could see it’s outdated, so I wanted to make the same feelings for kids today, as it did for me as I grew up. Of course, I realized that I cannot just make a remake and copycat, I have to tell it from my perspective. That’s why I wanted to move it to the Arctic where I grew up because I grew up in the Arctic and the wilderness. Even Cinderella’s hat is from my grandmother up in the Arctic. I was very influenced by that. We had the Northern Lights to have a guiding star or as we would maybe watch the sunset, but they watched the same in the Northern Lights. To bring those elements from the Arctic was important to me.
I love to hear about these details. It makes you really understand the story behind the movie. How did you manage to cast Astrid S, and what do you think about her job in the movie and the fact that she’s a very popular pop star?
Yes, I was looking everywhere for actors who could do Cinderella, but which was a very difficult part to find, because she needs to be quite young. You don’t have that many educated actors. I knew that Cinderella had to be the one when she enters the room, you just see her. That kind of aura. I also knew she had to be physically strong and needed to have a sense of music and empathy. She needed to not only have a big aura, but she needed to have this empathy that Cinderella is so filled up with. I’d nearly given up, and I was just resting on my couch watching some random television. Then, there was a program about her where she was about to do a lot of tasks and play with hosts at that show. It was like a slow movie. I was rising and shouting to my husband, ‘I found her! I found her! It’s of course Astrid S!,’ which was never on my radar because she’s a pop star and not an actress. We had several auditions and workshops to see if she really was able to adapt what she knows from stage performing to acting.
She was just like a miracle because she’s so tough and she’s so used to exercising from music and sports. She did sports at high level in her youth and she’s the most willing person I ever had in learning. She never stops. She never gives up. I had to command her to take breaks because she’s never quitting. I didn’t know her at all, but she also showed to be the most empathic person I had ever met. I think that shines through her eyes that she cares so much about other people, and she’s so engaged in different courses. She’s as kind as Cinderella, and she has strongness and toughness. Yes, so I was so lucky to try to relax that moment on the couch and put on a random television show. Of course, it took some time before she was sure that she had the time because her pop star career is very vibrant and everything. I was very lucky that she finally said yes to me, and then we started working.
She looks like Cinderella indeed. I also spoke with Ellen Dorrit Petersen, who is portraying the stepmother and she told me that she joined the project at a late stage. Can you please tell us something about her job on the set and her character, considering that she delivered quite a performance as the cruel stepmother?
Oh my God, wasn’t it fun to see her, how she is as a person? She is also one of the kindest people I know. How she managed to transform into that cruel stepmom? Well, I’ve worked with her several times and I’ve always adored her talent. I’m not going to tell you about the causing process, but something happened with someone, then I was like, ‘I want Ellen then.’ Fortunately, she was able to jump into the project. What we did was actually to make a quite a big history about the step member because I don’t believe people are evil for no reason. We made a big background story about how she always has been number two, she’s always done the perfect thing, she’s put on the right makeup, she’s said the right words, but she’s never the one who gets the attention and the love.
She’s never really been seen. It’s been like a mantra for her, ‘Someone has to see me,’ and she’s feeling so unfairly treated, and then she at least want her daughter to have the opportunities she didn’t have. It’s out of this feeling about never being seen enough that this power of being this evil woman, it’s just a sad girl who wants to be loved actually. Ellen is amazing. She’s so technically good. I’ll just say it. She works so hard on her own. It’s only small adjustments you need to give her, and she’s never asking, just working all the time, and constantly working. When she disagrees with something, she says it very friendly, ‘I don’t think this works.’ And then when she says that, it’s like, ‘Yes, you’re absolutely right,’ because just her actor intelligence is on a very high level. I have to say it.
I also loved how you added magic to the story with the three hazelnuts. At the same time, the magic is not excessive or too much. It’s just the right amount to the story to feel like the fairy tales we grow up listening to from our grandparents. Uh, how did you manage to find the perfect balance?
We do have a fantastic VFX studio here in Norway. We were lucky because Marvel was postponing a production due to Covid, and then they had time for us. It was a Norwegian company, but we agreed from the very beginning with the production designer and everyone, we wanted things to be organic, so we didn’t want it to be like turning into something that you could see as just tricks. We used a lot of time just to get the dust in it, that the dust is turning into things and that the elements, the straws, the things we wanted to not turn into something artificial. It was a lot of work. I’m really glad you saw that.
In some way, we wanted the magic also to be real but organic. It was important. You can see it in the costumes and everything in the wood that are in the buildings. Everything is truly organic. Nothing is fake. It’s wool, it’s no nylon or artificial walls. It’s a 300-year-old building we’re filming in. All those elements that make the structure organic were really important to me. This is also not only a fight about being herself and loving who you want to be, loving nature and the world. The Arctic is especially endangered because of all the things that are happening in the environment. We really wanted to show real stuff and that Cinderella is also an environment fighter.
I noticed that. I actually asked Astrid if there is an animal rights message in the movie, considering how much attention Cinderella seems to be paying to animals even when they try to hunt them down.
I think our Cinderella, her mission in life is to be good to people, animals, and nature. She’s trying to show us how to live a balanced life. She says, ‘We are not shooting animals, we don’t eat.’ So she lives in, in a pact with nature. She shoots animals when you need to eat them as we all do, but we have someone else slaughtering it. She’s very close to nature. I grew up like that too, that you use the whole animal. If you slaughter it, you eat the whole. You don’t only have the chicken test or something that you don’t see the animal. I think that’s a really important message to give to people that you have to live in the harmony with nature and not just use it and reuse it but live together with it. I think Cinderella is a very good teacher in that.
What was the hardest scene to shoot?
Of course, the big scene in the castle was very hard because it was outdoors. We had it in the backyard with those hundreds of extras with all the costumes and long hours. The hardest thing was when we were in the mountains when it was stormy. Horses went through and we lost crew members. They couldn’t find us, and the dark came and the horses got confused. That’s actually the ending scene when they were riding towards the castle and back from the prince, and the boys are coming back after him, we had flames and torches and all those things. That was really hard, I have to admit. It was out in the wilderness. It was so far from people. The torches were blowing out and we had to light them by hand. Everything is real in that film. [Laughs]. It was colder than it looks.
How important is it to have European productions dealing with timeless stories like Cinderella’s one?
I think it’s really important. I do love Disney and other fairy tales made in the States. But I think fairy tales are worldwide. This fairy tale was in China, it was in Europe, it was everywhere. I think to have our look upon these endlessly old fairy tales is so important culture-wise. I think we can learn from each other, from seeing culture through stories we all know. It’s easier to see the differences and the similarities, and maybe it can move us closer to each other.
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