[Cruella de Vil laughing]
[Connie Francis "Who's Sorry Now" playing]
♪ Who's sorry now ♪
- [Emma as Cruella] But a new day brings new opportunities,
and I was ready to make a statement.
[dogs growling]
How does the saying go?
[bright music]
- When you let any social thoughts drop out of your head,
when you think no one has to like me,
in fact I'd prefer if they didn't,
I just want what I want, I am single-minded,
it is an incredible feeling.
Not something that you can really live in in real life
for very long at all, hopefully,
but it's just is so phenomenal, it's such a good feeling.
[bright music]
I mean, I say imbecile a lot.
I say, "There is an I in imbecile"
when he says there's no I in team; I did like that.
I'm trying to remember them offhand now,
which, when you've only slept like three hours
is a hard thing to do.
I don't remember, but I do remember that there is this
moment that Emma says to Anita, the Baroness says to Anita,
"No amount of" what is it? It's like,
"No amount of eyeliner is gonna help you,
you plain little thing." Something like that. [laughing]
[bright music]
I think there's been a few incarnations of that.
I mean, nothing as extreme as that though;
that really is like an entirely different person
that she's becoming; [laughing]
like a complete loss of empathy.
I've never had like a full gaining or loss of empathy
in that way, so to play that extreme of a version,
that I've never gone through and that...
that was much more exciting probably
than any major transformations that I've had.
[bright music]
It was so ama- well because Nadia Stacey
did the hair and makeup
and then Jenny Beavan did the costumes,
they're so brilliant and they're just like doing their art
on you and then you get up and look in the mirror
and go like, "I did none of this."
And this has all been put on me, and I just get to-
they do so much of your job for you
that it was like the greatest gift.
You just sorta sit still and then you are done
and you're like, "What happened here?"
And Guy Common, who did my makeup, he was just gen-
you need to look at his Instagram, it's unbelievable.
Yeah, it was really like, it's almost not fair.
It's not fair, they did that and they sort of like
get all the credit for Cruella in a way. [laughing]
[bright music]
Well, it was pretty funny to practice it honestly.
There was a lot of practicing it in the shower,
because it's actually embarrassing to practice
in front of people; I'll laugh.
You know, you can work on movement with people
or you can work on the dialect with my dialect coach,
Neil Swain, but the laugh is like a very vulnerable thing
to do in front of anybody else,
because if it's wrong, you don't want someone to go like,
"That's your Cruella laugh?" It's a process, you know?
It's a process.
[bright music]
I think the biggest turning points have actually come from
not utilizing it.
Any version of failure in my life, or things that have gone
really wrong because I didn't speak up for myself
or speak up for what I needed to do,
I've been sort of slapped in the face for that;
and I don't mean physically, I mean sort of like,
in work or in relationships, I've had to sort of like...
Like friendships, if you don't say what you feel
and something goes amiss, you really do learn pretty quickly
like, "I need to speak up in moments like this."
People can't read your mind, so things can go really off
the rails if you assume that people are gonna be able
to read your mind.
So that's a turning point of using your voice
in a positive way, whether it's with people you love
or especially, especially work.
[bright music]
This year we started a company, a production company.
And being able to sort of do that,
to produce as well as be an actor-
as an actor you really are a cog in the machine,
and rightfully so, you're part of the...
that's what you're there to do, you're there to fulfill
someone else's vision.
And so to get to produce as well and have your voice heard
in a little bit of a different way and weigh-in more
has been really, really empowering and exciting
and not something that I really felt prepared to do
for many, many years.
I had a lot to learn and I still have so much to learn,
but that's been really an empowering kind of feeling.
[bright music]
For an actor, you sort of have two options.
One is that you can try to sort of fold into
other people's ideas of you; what you can play,
what you look like, what you are supposed to be.
Or you can go, "Okay, I am gonna-" you have to carve
some type of path that is your own and just be sort of like,
not for everyone, you know?
Like someone that people aren't that into.
There's like probably quite a lot of people that are like,
"She's not for me, no good, no thank you."
Which I get, because a lot of times,
I feel that way about me as well.
[bright music]
I think if you're not a straight, white man
you're put into a box; if you're anything other than that,
[laughing] you get put into boxes,
I don't think it's just women.
You know what's worse?
Is not even the boxes that I feel other people
have put me in,
it's the boxes I feel I have put myself in.
That's the harder thing to unpack for me,
'cause I think from a young age I though I needed to be
a particular way and I had just so much anxiety;
I was so convinced that I needed to do everything right
and I couldn't.
So I think from a young age, I put myself into boxes
from being anxious and it really, I think,
limited me for a really long time,
and still does in some ways.
[groaning] Anyway, so that kind of...
I guess those aren't necessarily boxes,
but those are personality traits that I've held on myself,
so it's almost worse than someone else doing it to you,
because at least if someone else is doing it to you,
you can be like, "No, I'm gonna break this."
But when you're doing it to yourself,
man, that's like a self-imprisonment, it sucks.
[bright music]