Last week, we got the first full trailer for the upcoming live action remake of Beauty and the Beast. It became the most watched trailer in the history of Youtube with over 127 million views in 24 hours. There is a lot of excitement for the movie, mostly due to the film's history, and Entertainment Weekly caught up with Angela Lansbury herself to get her thoughts on the film.
Lansbury, of course, is the one and only voice of Mrs. Potts in the original film, and EW asked her about her feelings on the upcoming remake.
"I was a bit taken aback, naturally. I thought, “Why? Why are we doing this over again?” But I guess, I don’t know why they’re doing it. But they are, and it will be interesting to see what they do with it"
That's not exactly a glowing endorsement from the original film's biggest star, and it's a bit unusual to say the least. Even if stars don't like the new film, we usually end up with the cliche response to a question like this. That was about the film in general. Lansbury was then asked about someone else voicing Mrs. Potts and that response was even more interesting
I can’t understand what they’re going to do with it that will be better than what we’ve already done. And how they’re doing it live — it may turn out to be very entertaining and wonderful. It won’t be like the cartoon that we did, but it’s a good story — it’s one of the famous fairy stories that is known worldwide by children. Therefore, why not? I don’t blame them for doing it. But, I’m sorry, they’re not really on our territory. We did it as cartoon characters, and that is quite different from live actors."
I could see if it was an actual person that Lansbury played, but she was a teapot. I'm surprised personally that they chose not to go with Lansbury or any of the original cast seeing as they are inanimate objects, and it appears that she is as well. It's all part of the business for Disney, which makes sense, but it's still going to feel unusual to hear someone other than the original Cogsworth, Lumiere and Mrs. Potts.
Beauty and the Beast hits theaters on March 17th, 2017.
