Disney stars shine in SA
DESCENDANTS 2: VILLAINS SHOW THEIR SOFTER SIDE It’s sweet to be rotten to the core.
Their movie characters might be villainous, but Dove Cameron, Cameron Boyce and Thomas Doherty are anything but. The three actors arrived in South Africa for the Africa premiere of Disney Channel’s movie Descendants
2. What they managed to do was charm the press, as well as creating a buzz among their tweendom of fans.
They arrived just a day before the premiere of the latest instalment of the highly successful Descendants franchise but managed to get a taste of the continent nonetheless.
Doherty and Cameron (who happen to be dating) went to an elephant park.
“We got to know elephants and learn a wee bit more about them,” chirps Doherty in his Scottish accent.
According to him they even had a pick-pocketing incident with a few mischievous monkeys at the park – but it was all in good fun: they loved the experience.
Boyce, on the other hand, ventured to the Rhino and Lion Park and was a bit hesitant when meeting members of the Big Five face-to-face.
“There are huge signs everywhere that say ‘Don’t feed them, don’t touch them’ and the guy that takes care of them asked if I’d like to touch them,” he says. What followed was an interaction with a grown cheetah that left a lasting imprint.
“It was pretty amazing but the baby leopard was my favourite. His name was Zulu, he was like a baby in my lap and my bracelets were hanging and he was trying to bite it, it was pretty cute,” Boyce says.
The experience came after a whirlwind world tour to promote the TV movie, and the three are also the first ever Disney TV stars to jump on a plane to Africa.
Cameron, who stars as Mal, the daughter of Maleficent, and Boyce, who brings to life Carlos, the son of Cruella de Vil, reprises their role in the sequel.
“For whatever reason Disney talent never made it out here, so why not be the first? We have fans that are just so passionate about our projects,” Boyce says about their visit to SA.
It’s also been a long road. Cameron has become a TV darling over the years thanks to her role on Disney Channel’s sitcom Liv and Maddie and last year’s Hairspray: Live, where she starred as Amber von Tussle alongside actors and singers like Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson. But Descendants remains a special journey.
“When I originally auditioned for it, it was about a year before it went into production. They wanted whoever they cast as Mal to be involved from the beginning.”
The plum part was that she would star as the mistress of all evil’s daughter. It’s a meaty role with a lot of dualities, since Cameron had to be rotten to the core and believable as someone discovering to be good.
“Mal is my favourite role ever, because I was allowed to do whatever I wanted with her. I got to know myself well by playing her,” she says.
Did their villainous characters come naturally?
“When people ask us as a group what it’s like to be villains, its difficult to answer because all your characters are different. Like, even when we were on the (fictional) Island of the Lost, Mal was naturally the evilest and a guy like Carlos is just doing random stuff,” says Boyce.
Director Kenny Ortega gave each of them some inspiration for their characters.
“He just told me that he doesn’t think Carlos is super evil, just more fun and mischievous,” he says.
“There are villains and then there are humans and I think every human has the propensity to be evil, and it’s fun to tap into that in a controlled environment,” says Doherty, who stars as Harry, the son of Captain Hook in the new film.
“Kenny told me he wanted Harry to be the worst villain in like 100 years,” he says.
Prepping for the second film also wasn’t necessarily a breeze. Doherty says his started with the audition process.
“There were three weeks of rehearsals on set, we had swordfight training, which was new to all of us. It was really intense, then choreography, we were practising scenes and doing a lot of character work. But we’re kind of just the tip of what everyone sees,” says Doherty, who marvelled at all the people who helped the actors along their journey to present these characters on screen.
In the sequel, when the pressure to fit in becomes too overwhelming, Mal returns to her rotten roots on the Isle of the Lost where she met her archenemy – the newly proclaimed queen of the town, Uma and her pirate gang who plan to break the barrier separating villains and heroes, creating havoc in the fairytale world.
The big question is, will Mal gravitate toward good and stop Uma?