You know the tale: the prince turns into a frog and his only hope of returning to his former dashing self is to kiss a princess. But come on, what beautiful heiress would stoop to smooch a slimy green amphibian? One who also has a big heart.
Chances are, the
picture books you read as a child did not feature an African American princess, but this is not the only artistic licence Disney used when producing an animated film of the story.
In their version, the magic goes horribly wrong. The frog prince mistakes Tiana for a princess, as she is wearing a tiara and ballgown. And instead of freeing Prince Charming from his frog form when she kisses him, Tiana becomes one herself - croak and all.
The Princess and the Frog, released in New Zealand this week, marks more than one milestone for Disney.
It is the first hand-drawn animation since Home on the Range (2004) and the first return to traditional methods since Pixar whiz John Lasseter became chief creative officer for the Disney Animation Studio. It's also the first time the princess has been darker than white, off-white or beige.
Since Cinderella was created in 1950, three of the eight Disney princesses have represented ethnic diversity - Native American Pocahontas, Chinese Mulan and Persian Jasmine.
Three years ago Anika Noni Rose met with Disney Animation to discuss a shared dream of creating a black heroine. At the time they were not sure whether they would use an existing children's story or write a new one.
"I think they did think they were going to create a new story, they were just trying to find the right story that they could do and do beautifully," she says, adding that as far as she was concerned, when it came to Disney, she would have leapt at any story.
"I would have been the mop in the bucket in Fantasia. I love the lead character in Lady and the Tramp, I love all the Siamese kitties, I love Cruella de Vil in all her wildness. There are so many amazing Disney characters.
"Before I started working for [Disney] I owned the Jungle Book, Aristocats, Fantasia, oh, and I used to watch them on repeat."
In the end, she thinks The Princess and the Frog has the right values embedded in it - like, wants are less important than needs - to launch the franchise's ninth princess.
It also has the mandatory quirky animals, this time a jazz-playing alligator and Cajun firefly.
Rose worked closely with the animators to model Tiana on herself. As well as sharing the same smooth, warm voice, both the character and the actress have curves and, at Rose's insistence, are left-handed.
"I wanted her to be left-handed. There are a lot of challenges as a left-hander - most of the time there's no one to teach you how to write. There's no mug made for you, the scissors aren't made for you. It's just a little thing but means a lot to me and left-handed kids, they'll notice it.
"I wanted her not to be a waif, I didn't want her to be someone who could blow away in the breeze. I think we have enough of those images for young women. She has curly hair, a full mouth - she's very distinctive in her features and very clearly herself. I think it's very important because her look is not something often represented in the standard of beauty," she says.
The similarities don't stop at aesthetics - Rose and Tiana share a list of similar experiences and personality traits.
Alone and jobless, Rose moved from Connecticut to the Big Apple to carve out her acting career. A few months later she landed a Broadway role and made minor television appearances before her big break in Dreamgirls (2006) with Beyonce Knowles and Jennifer Hudson.
Similarly Tiana, who lives in the French Quarter of New Orleans, dreams of working her way from the kitchen and waiting tables, to owning a restaurant.
"Both of us come from situations and places where it is not expected at all for us to be doing the things that we're doing," Rose explains.
"But we both had families who were supportive of us in our dreams, which I think for children makes all the difference in the world, whether you believe in their dream or not, to believe in them. And we both had the determination to make a plan for life and work at it, to train at it, and find our way, in spite of all the things that might be lying on the road to trip us up or the nay-sayers around."
It may be a fairytale, but Tiana, like Rose, was not able to rely on magic to get her out of sticky situations. Instead, she learns to believe that anything worth having is worth the hard work to get it.
But Rose admits she wouldn't have minded a magic wand to help her along the way if it had been on hand.
"There are things I probably would have done earlier in my career if I had the magic to make it happen. But I think that I'm very glad I didn't have the magic to make it happen because as much as you want to be at the top of your game when you are 17 or 18, you're not really ready for all the things that come with that. So I'm glad that I've had to take the time to get where I am, because I know myself very well and it gives me a chance to be more prepared for this crazy business that I'm in," she says.
And as far as that wild and wacky business goes, The Princess and the Frog is the most surreal yet - she's now got a doll modelled on her.
Rose describes the experience behind the scenes of animation as accessing her inner child.
There was a lot of jumping, dashing around the studio and experimenting with all sorts of gyrations to pin down the inflection of the voice during a scene when the character is moving.
"If you had to do a kiss, you couldn't just kiss the mic, so I did a recording for that. We did several different kissing sounds - kissing the hand, the air, open palm ... you get very creative about how you make your noises," she says.
To have this much fun, to create a beautifully rendered film that represents both a move back to traditional drawn animation and the first black princess on Disney's block is more than a great honour, Rose says. "It's amazing, for someone who dreamed of being a Disney voice my entire life, this is a dream come true, but it's even bigger than the way I dreamed it. It is magnificent."
Lowdown
Who: Anika Noni Rose
What: The Princess and the Frog
When: Opens at cinemas, Thursday December 31
Anika Noni Rose plays Tiara in The Princess and the Frog. Photo / Supplied
You know the tale: the prince turns into a frog and his only hope of returning to his former dashing self is to kiss a princess. But come on, what beautiful heiress would stoop to smooch a slimy green amphibian? One who also has a big heart.
Chances are, the
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