UltimateDisney.com Interview with Mary Costa

[Escapay]

The Voice of Sleeping Beauty's Princess Aurora Discusses Her Beloved Film, The Five Ds, Pink, Blue, and Working with Walt

Read it, it's excellent.

albert

[pap64]

I was very surprised to read her thoughts on "Enchanted Tales". I've never seen a legendary Disney actor comment on recent sequels and DTV specials.

Plus, I love the question about Aurora being a passive heroine. Reminded me of that HUGE debacle we had a few months back...

Good times .

[Jules]

And she does give some more insight on Walt Disney's personality. I've always wondered what kind of person he was ....

[Daisy Duck]

That was a great interview. And I lean towards the pink dress, too.

[pinkrenata]

Thanks for the comments! She really was lovely to talk to. And leave it to me to ask the pink/blue question!

[Kossage]

It's a nice and well thought out interview, and it provides lots of interesting information. Among other things the anecdotes about Walt and the production of Sleeping Beauty are a joy to read.

[Ariel'sprince]

Thanks for the interview she seems very nice and really great,I think that she's my favorite Disney/Princess voice actor after Jodi Benson.
I really loved her answare about if Aurora is a passive heroine and she's right,she's a strong character and is a real heroine/hero.
What she said about Enchanted Tales they a ruined her a voice a little but it's okay (Comparing to the girl who sung her in the Princess Christmas Album).

[Disneykid]

Excellent job on the interview, Renata! I, too, find her thoughts on the Enchanted Tales segment refreshingly honest, and I bet the backlash Disney got from that caused them to overhaul their second volume. This interview also helped clear some confusion I had over her relationship with Walt. On the 2003 SE, she told several stories about him, including the bluebird one. Then, when doing press junkets for this 2008 PE, she's been saying she only ever met Walt once or twice. Now I see, thanks to this interview, that she and Walt spent a lot of time together chatting by phone, which is where the SE reminisces come from. Thanks for clearing that up!

[PrincePhillipFan]

A beautiful interview. I love hearing her reflections on what Walt was like to work with her and her career. It made me smile too hearing the recollections she had with Marc Davis, Bill Shirley, and Eleanor Audley and what it was like to work with them on the film. Such a talented and gracious woman.

[Poody]

Ouch at her Enchanted Tales comments! I still would have loved to have her do Aurora's voice there.....

[yukitora]

I guess the Sleeping Beauty segment from "A Kingdom of Kindess" will never be released then...

I find it puzzling why they never seem to ask Mary Costa to voice Aurora... we all know she still can.

[BrandonH]

The interview itself is great. Once again, though, I implore whoever designs the pages to consider the readability of the text. Dark-on-dark and light-on-light do not work. With that purple background, black text is extremely difficult to see. White or light text would be much more readable. Sure, a Ctrl-A highlight solves the immediate problem, but the reader should not have to do that to enjoy an interview or review.

[Poody]

I guess the Sleeping Beauty segment from "A Kingdom of Kindess" will never be released then...

I find it puzzling why they never seem to ask Mary Costa to voice Aurora... we all know she still can.

I understand if they choose to discontinue the Enchanted Tales series.... But, if they should still release the finished stories! What a waste!

[Ariel'sprince]

I guess the Sleeping Beauty segment from "A Kingdom of Kindess" will never be released then...

I find it puzzling why they never seem to ask Mary Costa to voice Aurora... we all know she still can.

I understand if they choose to discontinue the Enchanted Tales series.... But, if they should still release the finished stories! What a waste!

Actually,volume 2 is coming soon (The books were just released) so I guess it will be released in February.
And I guess that volume 3 and volume 4 will also come (Hoping that volume 3 will be about Pocahontas and Belle and volume 4 about Ariel and Snow White).

[Disney Duster]

I loved the interview, especially thanks for asking the hard, daring questions, Renata!

But I didn't like when Mary said, "It was Walt's favorite movie."

Yea, it was his favorite. That's why he said the story's about the same as Snow White and Cinderella, just make it look different. And he said to them "Make it different." He didn't say "Let's make it different" or "We'll make it different", he told them to do it. He practically put Eyvind Earle in charge of the whole film, while he paid attention to Disneyland. Sure, he still had to approve everything on the film and from Mary it sounds like he really cared about it, but if that film was Walt's most loved film he must've loved Disneyland even more, because countless sources and people said he was far more into that. And I'm sure Walt cared about animation and theme parks pretty evenly, it's just that he went from one to another. Animated features were his first great, ambitious projects (and will always be his best and he probably did love his early features more than the parks). Meaning that I find it very hard to believe that Sleeping Beauty could be his favorite film when Disneyland eclipsed it in his time and input and well, what sounds like his care, and it makes more sense for almost any of the previous films to be his favorite.

I think Mary made an assumption that it was his favorite movie.

Or did he really tell her that? And was it a passing remark, kind of caught up in the moment, like "Oh, this is my favorite!", only to realize that when thinking about it, in retrospective, it really wasn't his favorite? Or maybe he thought it was his favorite until it didn't make it's return in costs and got mostly negative reviews and he said "Is that what I paid $6,000,000 for!?" or whatever he said. I mean, he loved Snow White until everyone, every time, compared it to his new films. Then he, reportedly, hated it. But I don't think money and criticism should factor into what his favorite is. Unless, well, it does.

HOWEVER I don't deny that it's still possible Sleeping Beauty was his favorite. It combined so many of his favorite things. Classical music...um....uh...a fairy tale, forests and woodland creatures, an exciting, scary, evil, queenly villainess, really good, realistic live-action referenced animation, and tons of Disney dust. If you don't think he cared that much about Disney dust, I've got a story for you.

But I think it makes far more sense for one of his favorites to be one of the older films. Any Golden Age film, Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia or Bambi, except Dumbo since he didn't seem to care a lot about Dumbo. And if not one of them it could be Cinderella, because frankly he didn't seem to care much for Alice, Peter Pan, or even Lady and the Tramp, or at least not as much as for the other films, okay?

Pretty much after Lady and the Tramp, he didn't seem to care much about animated films in general. I already mentioned Eyvind Earle pratcially taking over Sleeping Beauty. The artists also took over 101 Dalmatians and Walt said he not only didn't like the style, but they should not do that style again next time. They should try a different style. It was like he wasn't in charge of the animated films anymore. And after 101 Dalmatians, the films just go downhill, in my opinion. Even The Jungle Book.

Now, feel free, anyone, to correct me on anything.

[Ariel'sprince]

Isn't Snow White his favorite?.

[carolinakid]

I agree with Mike. I've never heard or read that Sleeping Beauty was his favorite ,and this is not to say I think Ms Costa is being untruthful. He may indeed have expressed that thought to her. I always heard Walt's personal favorite was Bambi, and I believe that was stated somewhere on the Bambi PE. The Mary Costa interview was fabulous!

Jon

[pap64]

Isn't Snow White his favorite?.

Snow White isn't ANYONE'S favorite...

Yes, which film Disney liked will forever remain a mystery as he seems so enthusiastic about ALL of them, but behind the scenes he was a whole different man. Disney would lead you to believe that Walt LOVED Fantasia, but I heard it became his most hated film after it completely bombed.

I wouldn't be surprised if he told that X movie was his favorite to his actors and crew men simply because he wanted them to work on the film knowing that it had Walt's approval.

[Ariel'sprince]

Isn't Snow White his favorite?.

Snow White isn't ANYONE'S favorite...

Yes, which film Disney liked will forever remain a mystery as he seems so enthusiastic about ALL of them, but behind the scenes he was a whole different man. Disney would lead you to believe that Walt LOVED Fantasia, but I heard it became his most hated film after it completely bombed.

I wouldn't be surprised if he told that X movie was his favorite to his actors and crew men simply because he wanted them to work on the film knowing that it had Walt's approval.

Believe it or not but I know people that their most favorite film is Snow White,I think there's a few people here that their favorite movie is Snow White,I like Snow White but I just love movies like The Little Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty more.
I think that many people are cruel to Snow White.

[MagicMirror]

I think Walt was always rather quiet about which of his films he liked the most. However, I do seem to recall him admitting in interview that, when pressed, his favourite was 'Dumbo'. But he may have changed his mind a lot.