Young hiss-ables
Mischief-making, music are in store for the children of Disney’s villains
Progeny of Disney’s villains up for mischief in “Descendants.”
hese rotten apples don’t fall far from the family tree.
Disney villains’ children take the spotlight in the Disney Channel original movie Descendants, an action/adventure/romantic comedy with musical numbers directed and choreographed by Kenny Ortega ( High School Musical).
Those beloved baddies of classic animated movies are “misunderstood in a lot of ways,” says Kristin Chenoweth, who has a darkly humorous turn as the evil Maleficent. “Everybody wants what they want, and these villains want what they want.”
Premiering this summer, the movie checks in with characters in their “happily ever after” lives — well, at least for the heroes — on the mainland in Auradon. Villains such as Jafar, Cruella de Vil and the Evil Queen are banished to the Isle of the Lost, where they cannot use their powers.
But Ben (Mitchell Hope), the son of Belle and Beast, has been tapped as the new king, and he decides to take some of the bad guys’ home-schooled teenagers — Maleficent’s daughter Mal, Cruella’s son Carlos, the Evil Queen’s daughter Evie and Jafar’s son Jay — and allow them to attend Auradon Prep.
It’s a transformational tale for Mal, actress Dove Cameron says of her character. “She becomes less sarcastic and guarded, and becomes a bit more lovely and generous — what you’d expect ... (of ) a Disney princess.”
Ortega promises catchy tunes and the exploration of kids doing everything they can to win their parents’ love: “Does that make them bad? Yeah, a little. That they have the option to choose who they’re going to be is what opens up a big part of our story.”
Cameron, 19, a superfan of Chenoweth’s since she was 7, was floored when learning of her new screen mom. “There was crying involved,” Cameron says.
Chenoweth’s take on Maleficent is unlike Angelina Jolie’s in last year’s film and 1959’s Sleeping
Beauty. “Let’s face it, she sings and dances,” the actress says.
She also loves that Mal is her mom’s own little “mini-me.”
“Maleficent wants her (child) to grow up and be her,” Chenoweth says. “I think a lot of mothers and daughters can relate.”