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This movie was such a delight! Was so fun watching a coming of age film centred on such a down to earth and quirky character who becomes a princess. Enjoy :)

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FULL REACTION - The Princess Diaries

Enjoy watching along with me the full-length reaction!

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Heida

About Lilly: I know it's like popular now to hate her and say she's a bad friend but I don't get that at all. Yeah she was a jerk in the car because of Mia's make-over but as soon as she told her the truth she apologised AND stood up for her at school. Plus, she kept her secret and didn't try to take advantage of her status. If anything, Mia was a bad friend. She promised Lilly she would be on her show but she was a no-show (to be with a boy she liked who was a jerk even before he kissed her) AND didn't even let her know about it which made Lilly look like an idiot on live TV. Yet, when Mia apologised she immediately forgave her. Lilly literally had one bad moment and she was a 'bad friend' but for 95% of the movie she was a good and supportive friend. Also, cats lay on EVERYTHING, especially paper 😂 Anyways, this movie was literally my childhood. So many fun facts about it: It is based on a book of the same name by Meg Cabot. There are some huge differences though, like Queen Clarisse is not nice at all and her & Mia don't have a good relationship (she is also the one who outs Mia as a princess to the press). Mia lives in New York instead of San Francisco, her dad is alive in but has cancer and Mia & Michael don't get together until much later. However, the second movie just erases the rest of the books and takes a whole different direction. At first I was really pissed about that but the movie is so good (not as good as this one but still good) and it's got Chris Pine! If you haven't seen them, Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music are a must! And fun fact: Miss Andrews also voiced Queen Lillian, Fiona's mother, in Shrek 2-4. Also, other Anne Hathaway movies I recommend are The Devil Wears Prada (with Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt), Ella Enchanted, Valentine's Day (with an ensemble cast), Alice In Wonderland (with Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman etc.), Les Misérables (also an ensemble cast) and The Intern (with Robert DeNiro). Michael is played by Robert Schwartzman who's real life band, Rooney, appears as the character's band. He is related to the Coppola family and Nicolas Cage. He wanted to change his last name in the credits to Cage in honor of his cousin but the movie's promotional material had already been finalised. Lana is played by Mandy Moore who voiced Rapunzel in Tangled and has starred in movies such as A Walk To Remember (which I recommend), Saved! (with Heather Matarazzo, Jena Malone and Macaulay Culkin), Chasing Liberty (with Mark Harmon), Because I Said So (with Diane Keaton), License to Wed (with Robin Williams and John Krasinski) and 47 Meters Down (with Claire Holt) as well as NBC's hit series This Is Us. She is also a singer. Lilly is played by Heather Matarazzo. Along with Saved! she has been in Scream 3 and 5 for instance. She once revealed she was scheduled to attend a meeting on the 15th floor of the World Trade Center on 9/11 shortly after the attacks occurred but she overslept. Joe is played by Héctor Elizondo who has been in pretty much every movie Garry Marshall has directed - including Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve. He has also been on shows such as Chicago Hope and Last Man Standing. Charlotte is played by Kathleen Marshall, director Garry Marshall's daughter IRL. His twin granddaughters also appear as the little girls who ask Mia for autographs and Garry himself, along with his wife and sister, has a cameo as a guest at the ball. Paolo is played by Larry Miller who has also been in many Garry Marshall movies, as well as 10 Things I Hate About You and The Nutty Professor. He was also on the show Mad About You which starred Lisa Kudrow as Ursula Buffay (her character was incorporated into Friends as Phoebe's twin because of Lisa). Helen, Mia's mum, is played by Caroline Goodall has been in movies such as Schindler's List, Cliffhanger, Hook and Chasing Liberty (in the last one she plays Mandy Moore's mum). Vice Principal Gupta is played by Sandra Oh who is best known for her roles as Cristina Yang on Grey's Anatomy and Eve on Killing Eve. Baroness von Troken is played by Bonnie Aarons who plays the demon nun in The Conjuring movie franchise (mainly The Nun). During her audition, Anne Hathaway fell out of her chair and was immediately given the part as clumsy Mia Thermopolis. She was literally born for this role. Also, Garry Marshall's granddaughters watched the tapes of actresses auditioning for the role and they told him he should hire her because she had "good princess hair". This was her first movie role her and breakout role—she was 18. Speaking of being clumsy... Mia falling on the bleachers was not scripted. Anne Hathaway slipped on a puddle while doing the scene and director Garry Marshall thought it was so funny that he inserted it in the final cut. Furthermore, the dinner scene when Mia accidentally sets the guy's arm on fire, the flames were supposed to go out when he put his arm in the ice bucket but they didn't. Anne panicked and threw the glass of water on it. Also, in that scene a waiter says "it happens all the time" - The same actor plays a waiter in Pretty Woman who says the same line to Julia Roberts' character. Both movies were directed by Garry Marshall. Amanda Bynes, Scarlett Johansson, Emmy Rossum and January Jones auditioned for the role of Mia while Alyssa Milano turned ir down, fearing being typecast for playing girl-next-door characters. Dame Helen Mirren was considered for the role of Queen Clarisse. Laura Prepon was offered the role of Lilly but turned it down. Mia's cat Fat Louie was portrayed by four different cats, one of whom was actually Anne Hathaway's own cat. Each cat served a different purpose: one was meant to be carried, another sat still for extended periods of time, a third was used for jumping and stunts and the final (Anne's) is in the movie's final scene. The photo of Mia's father in the movie's opening scenes is a photo of Anne Hathaway's dad. He is also the one you see in the flashback scene when she's reading the letter. It was Anne Hathaway's idea that the brush should break. She had to wear a clip-in hairpiece to create Mia’s hair pre-makeover and it was affectionately nicknamed "the beast" by the cast and crew. Her eyebrows took about an hour to apply as each tiny hair had to be individually glued in place. It was also Anne's idea to have the pore strip on her nose during the scene when Michael comes with Mia's car. In that scene Mia is also watching one of the movie's deleted scenes. During filming of the tea scene in the garden and the greenhouse scene, airplanes were flying over the area. When the scenes were finished, Garry Marshall gave Anne Hathaway and Dame Julie Andrews awards for "best acting in airplane interference". While filming the final dance scene, Madonna's "Like A Prayer" was played on a boom-box to get natural dancing from the actors on-set (to be then dubbed over by the song that appeared in the final cut - Miracles Happen by Myra) and the actors kept mouthing the words to the song. The on-screen relationship between Clarisse and Joe was not scripted. They just had so much chemistry, especially during the dance rehearsal scene which was improvised. For the first half of the movie, Clarisse wears only black and dark outfits. After Joe says "You've been wearing black too long" during their dance, she starts to add more color to her wardrobe. It is later revealed that her husband, King Rupert, had passed away the previous year. This can be interpreted as her still mourning his death, but as she falls in love with Joe her personality becomes alive and colorful again. The movie was co-produced by Whitney Houston. The scene in which Mia smears her ice cream cone on Lana's cheerleader uniform was her idea. The movie was filmed on the same sound stage Mary Poppins was filmed, which has since been named "The Julie Andrews stage". The rental house in which Julie Andrews lived while filming Mary Poppins was lived in by Garry Marshall while filming this movie (If you haven't seen them, Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music are a must! And fun fact: Miss Andrews also voiced Queen Lillian, Fiona's mother, in Shrek 2-4). The castle at the end is the Longford Castle located just south of Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. Garry Marshall's favorite saying while making a movie "Everybody works!" was loosely translated into Latin to become the Genovian motto "Totus corpum laborat". The pillow Fat Louie is lying on at the end has that phrase. Towards the beginning of the movie when Mia is on the way to school, she crosses the street on her scooter where a limo passes behind her—It's Clarisse's limo. When Clarisse first sees Mia she says "Let me take a look at you". This is the same line Julie Andrews' character says in The Sound of Music when she meets the children. During the makeover, Paolo calls Mia's eyebrows Frida and Kahlo— Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist who had a unibrow. He also mentions Brooke Shields and Groucho Marx who were both known for their thick, dark eyebrows. There's a short mid/post-credit scene where Mia tries to kick the ball but falls instead. Sorry if this is too long. Kudos to you if you read all that 👍🏻

J C

You should totally watch the second one! It's great!