James Marsden: Enchanted Prince

After wowing us as the hot Cyclops in the X-Men films and making us want to get up and shake our booties as Corny Collins in the fun musical Hairspray, handsome James Marsden conquers fantasyland as a Disney-style perfect prince in the new musical romantic comedy Enchanted.

We got to chat with Jimmy (as his friends call him) at the posh and famous Beverly Hilton Hotel recently. The actor was anything but "posh" dressed casually in cute gray and black stripe sweater, jeans and growing a beard. After his musical performances in Hairspray and now Enchanted, we wanted to know if singing is a permanent fixture in his career future and what it was like running around New York in tights and a poofy-sleeved prince outfit while talking to an animated chipmunk that wasn't really there...yet. Wacky? Just wait...

TeenHollywood: Hey, two wacky, perfect looking guy characters in a row...

James: Have I found my calling? I got caught having too much fun with it. They've discovered who I really am. I had my own costume. That's why I got cast.

TeenHollywood: Poofy-sleeved prince costume, yeah, right. Okay.. this prince character is kind of self-absorbed and just out there. Was it easy for you to be that non-judgmental about the character?

James: It was easy for me. I don't want to sound like it was effortless but, when I read the script, it was very clear to me who this character was and how he should be played. He wasn't exactly like the princes from say 'Snow White' or 'Cinderella' because those princes weren't really allowed to have much personality. He was always written larger than life, a healthy ego but it all came from a place of innocence and sincerity so that, I think, lets his narcissism off the hook.

TeenHollywood: We also sense a little bit of the Disney bad guy...

James: Gaston [from Beauty and the Beast], yeah! It was written that way but without being a villain. He was always well-intentioned. That's why when he says, 'Thank you for taking care of my bride, peasants', Gaston would say that and you would know that he was making a dig but Prince Edward was just genuine, a ditzy [laughs] genuine hero. I was not judgmental of the character. It sounded like a lot of fun and, to me, it just sort of clicked. I just felt I knew who he was. I offered up to Kevin [Lima, the director] that singing was a hobby of mine and he indulged us and let us go in and practice the songs and, ultimately, we [he and Amy Adams] qualified to sing in the movie.

TeenHollywood: You had to be the prince as an animated character first. What was that voice-over experience like for you?

James: Well, it was an interesting process, Kevin reminded me that, when we went in and did the voice work which took like two hours, he said 'you're locking yourself into a certain degree of your character right now. So, this is the character's voice. Let's find that'. It just felt natural to declare everything that needed to be declared and sung. It was larger than life. A lot of the burden was taken off of me when I realized that, whatever I do on set, the animation department have the responsibility to match that because none of the animation was done before we started the live action shooting, just the voice work.

TeenHollywood: So, you didn't know what the animated prince would look like?

James: There were sketches of the characters. There was a still image of what the character would look like but that was it. Kevin did show us almost like a flip book of the first twelve minutes, black and white, still images but it was never fully animated or fully alive. So, it was great. We actually were given a pretty good amount of creative license to do what we wanted to do within certain Disney perimeters and then the animators would go in and animate the characters.

TeenHollywood: Well, you're safe in the sound booth for the voice work but, once you take your prince into the real world, it gets dangerous! Were you on top of that bus at all or trampled by the cyclists?

James: Well, I was on the bus for I think three or four days. I kept thinking, 'I could be mortified and this could traumatize me for the rest of my life', like in a nightmarish way, or I could enjoy it and I just kept thinking, 'whenever am I going to get to do this again?' I can safely say that I don't think anyone has ever done this before; in tights and puffy sleeves, stabbing a bus in the middle of Times Square. I'm the first' [laughs].

TeenHollywood: You were in Superman Returns and there are billboards all around Times Square in this film. When did you notice the billboards?

James: As soon as I climbed up on top of the bus [laughter] and, at the time I didn't know I was doing Hairspray and there was also a giant Broadway, "Hairspray" billboard so someone was looking out for me, putting my resume in the background.

TeenHollywood: And getting trampled by the guys on bikes?

James: That was the last shot of the movie for me. Stuntmen, because they're told to, are usually very delicate with actors and, the first couple of takes, the bicyclist would sort of bump me and I would have to fake a fall and on playback, we watched it back and it just wasn't that funny. I said 'just take me out!' [laughter]. First of all, it's funnier, second, if I get hurt, the movie is in the can so there's not going to be any sort of insurance claims taken out. So he knocked the hell out of me but it's funnier. My voice squeaks and he just knocks me down but there was a pad in front of me and, actually, the prince's suit is pretty padded [he indicates the big puffy sleeves] built-in air bags.

TeenHollywood: What about dancing in this film? Were you up for that?

James: I was up for it. I wouldn't say that I'm that comfortable doing all of the dancing. I'm more comfortable singing. I didn't have to do that much dancing in Hairspray or in this movie but we treated it as though I was going to have to do a lot so there were extensive rehearsals. We had to learn the proper Viennese waltz. I actually had more lessons than Patrick [Dempsey] but, at the end of the movie, it's Patrick and Amy doing the dancing.

TeenHollywood: You were talking to this chipmunk that wasn't really there yet. Was that your director Kevin running around squeaking on set?

James: It was Kevin running around squeaking. First of all, a lot of times, there was nothing there so you were acting to nothing. When I grab him, you sort of have to imagine there's something there. But, they also had a little stuffed chipmunk on the end of a stick.

TeenHollywood: Did you see a drawing of what it was going to look like?

James: Yeah, they would come to the set with a laptop computer and show us like a ten second test of the chipmunk and what he would look like so you'd think 'okay' and you would just call on that. But, it's standing there acting to nothing. The prince doesn't really understand what [the chipmunk is] saying most of the time anyway.

TeenHollywood: We hear that you sent a tape to the director to show you could sing. Why Sinatra and which songs?

James: They were Sinatra songs mainly because they were the only recordings I had, recordings of me singing those songs for 'Ally McBeal'. I did like I think thirteen episodes of that show with me singing in the bar a lot so I was doing Dean Martin and Sinatra and I had the recordings on a disc. 'The Lady's a Tramp' and 'I've Got the World on a String' or something. I can't remember. But, very different than this style of singing.

TeenHollywood: Would you say you are a romantic like your character or more practical?

James: I think I'm somewhere in between. I am pretty practical and I can be fairly cynical but I also like to think that I can be romantic [he laughs]. Romantic acts don't take the form of rose petals on the floor and chocolates; all of those things that seem 'romance 101'. My wife thinks I'm romantic if I get up with the crying baby and let her sleep in. That's a good one. But, to me romance is thoughtful acts for someone you love. That would be filling her car up with gas or making her coffee. But, very early on in our relationship, there was lots of serenading on the beach and things like that but once you have kids... [laughter].

TeenHollywood: So, seriously, Is doing this musical thing going to be permanent in your future?

James: Well, I don't want to overstay my welcome in any genre. But, I really did enjoy these two films, Enchanted and Hairspray. They were just completely different than anything I've ever done before and, like I said, singing has always been a hobby of mine and to be able to do it in an acting job was a lot of fun. I would do it again for sure. But, creatively, it's always more interesting to do something completely different which is why I'm doing this dark, psychological thriller starting in a couple of weeks.

TeenHollywood: What is it?

James: It's a movie called The Box that Richard Kelly is directing Cameron Diaz and I. We play a married couple that receive this strange box with a button in the middle from this very odd man played by Frank Langella. You push the button and someone you don't know will die but you get this certain sum of money. It's a lot more intelligent than just your regular, mainstream genres but I guess you can call it a supernatural thriller.

TeenHollywood: You've got this comedy coming up with Katherine Heigl. Can you talk about that?

James: Yeah. I get the girl! It's a romantic comedy with Katherine that I would liken to When Harry Met Sally. A girl is described as a compulsive bridesmaid. She's obsessed with love and weddings and going to weddings. She's been a bridesmaid 27 times and she keeps every one of her dresses. I play a journalist who has tried to get out of the commitments or vows section of the paper to get into the more legitimate newsroom so he writes these what most women think are these beautiful sections in the paper but he's a very cynical guy and thinks it's all crap. He just does it to make money. He meets this girl and discovers she's this perpetual bridesmaid and thinks it's very interesting so he's planning this expose thing about her for it to be the article to put him into the real newsroom and, in the course of that, they sort of become friends. It's a very complicated and very twisty plot. But, that's sort of the premise of it.

TeenHollywood: Sounds really good. Anything planned after that?

James: I'm scheduled to do another film after that called The Sex Drive. It's another comedy but it's in the vein of Superbad. My younger brother has this online relationship with this girl and he misinterprets what she writes to him so he thinks she's saying 'if you drive to where I am, I'll have sex with you' and I play his older brother who is kind of a redneck, drives a classic car and makes fun of him.

TeenHollywood: Oooooh, Sex drive.. like a drive in a car.. Duh, now we get the play on words. Okay, you've had an action figure before but have you seen your prince doll for this movie?

James: I haven't seen the doll for this but having gone through that with the X-Men films, it was exciting when that happened and being on the side of Dr. Pepper cans, very surreal. Buy, honestly, I thought that was going to be the last of it. When am I going to get to do this again? I wish I could describe it. I'm just so honored and it's very flattering. But, I'm always thinking 'how am I going to top this?' I've done the superhero now and the iconic Disney character. I just feel really, really, lucky.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.