The Oscar-winning actresses were surprised by how dark the new story was allowed to get...
Disney has never shied away from being fairly traumatising with their movies.
Everything from Bambi's mum all the way up to the furnace in Toy Story 3, there have been parts of their stories that have kids (and adults) verging on tears.
However, while they can make audiences cry better than most, they rarely tend to go dark. And we mean DARK dark.
When you think of the plot of the original 101 Dalmatians (and the Glenn Close live-action remake), it does involve a woman who wants to skin pet dogs for a coat. And that is pretty damned dark!
So when it came to Cruella, the brand-new prequel movie that tells the story of how Cruella came to be, you might think that Disney might want to tone down the darkness a smidge.
Turns out that this is absolutely not the case, as the new movie kicks off with a severely traumatising event, before going down a long, dark alley, filled with murky twists and turns.
We were lucky enough to take part in the global press conference for the movie and we asked Emma Stone (playing Cruella) and Emma Thompson (playing the movie's antagonist The Baroness) if they were surprised by how deliciously dark Disney allowed this story to get?
Stone answered first, telling us: "I was [surprised]. I think Craig Gillespie [director] and Tony McNamara [writer] kind of write and make what they wanted to make. And I think it's definitely dark for a Disney movie. Maybe not for a really intense kind of R-rated film. But yeah, it was darker than I've seen a Disney movie for a good long time."
Thompson then followed, jokingly telling us: "I drew on the life, obviously. I mean, I think if my husband were in the room, he'd say, 'And no acting required, really.'
"I had such fun doing her, because I think I've been asking for quite a number of years if I could be a villain, a proper villain. And I spent decades playing what my mother used to call 'Good women in frocks'. And now I got to play a really evil woman in frocks.
"But oh boy, the frocks. I mean, they wore me, actually, really is what happened. Uh, I had just the best, best time. And every time Em and I would come on set, we'd just look at each other and walk around each other, like we were sculptures or works of art or something, which we were. I mean, it was in a way, everyone created the Baroness, and then I sort of stepped in and just said the words."
Cruella will be available to watch in Ireland on Disney+ with Premier Access from Friday, 28 May.
Clip via Disney Ireland
