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DAN STEVENS
Biography Actor DAN STEVENS (The Beast) will next be seen in Noah Hawley’s Marvel series “Legion” for FX premiering in 2017. Upcoming projects include the role of Charles Dickens in “The Man Who Invented Christmas” and Gareth Evans’ “Apostle,” in which Stevens plays a man who goes in search of his missing sister. Stevens will also be seen opposite Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis in the sci-‐fi drama “Colossal”; the romantic comedy “Permission,” opposite Rebecca Hall; and with Malin Ackerman in “The Ticket.” Previously, Stevens starred in the cult hit “The Guest,” “Night at the Museum III,” “A Walk Amongst the Tombstones” and “Criminal Activities.” He is known for his performance as Matthew Crawley in the Golden Globe®-‐winning drama “Downton Abbey.” His other television credits include HBO’s “High Maintenance,” “Sense & Sensibility,” “The Line of Beauty” and “Frankenstein,” as well as roles in the TV movies “Maxwell” and “Dracula.” Stevens’ theatre credits include “The Heiress” on Broadway, “Arcadia,” “The Vortex” and “Hay Fever” in the West End and “Every Good Boy Deserves Favor” at The National Theatre in London. He is represented by WME, Julian Belfrage Associates and Peikoff/Mahan.
# # # Q&A: 1. What was it that appealed to you about this role? A. It’s a huge challenge turning a beloved 2D animated film into a more human 3D story, but it’s a great story with great characters so I was very excited (and my wife and kids were very excited, too). I also like that the film is a blend of the real and the virtual. We’ve obviously got some green screen and some CGI, but there’s also a great deal of real going on, too. I was in my early teens when the animated film came out and I remember seeing it at the cinema and it being hugely popular, so it was fun for me to think about all the different aspects of the character that I could play with. 2. How was it working with director Bill Condon again? A. Well, Bill is obviously a master of the big musical extravaganza, so he’s been just great. I had worked with him before so I knew his style and we were able to spend a couple of months going over the script and seeing how we could bring some nuances to the Beast and make him a little more two-‐
2 dimensional and a bit more human. We wanted to make him appear like a human trapped inside this creature. 3. Tell us about your character. How does he differ from the Beast in the animated film? A. One of the biggest differences is that in the animated film you don’t see the Beast before he was transformed. You see a stained glass window version of him but there’s no real sense of what he was really like. In this film we see him at the debutantes’ ball, and something that Bill and I were keen to bring out was this sense of a petulant, spoiled child and the sense of entitlement which led to his downfall. It was quite fun to do the prologue at the beginning of the film, which was conveyed almost entirely through the medium of dance, which is not something I’d done much of before, but it allows the audience to see why he was cursed in the first place, which was not just for having refused a rose but for all his other traits as well. There’s this psychological rationale about what makes a beast a beast, so I watched everything from “Wreck It Ralph” to “Citizen Kane” to help get me inspired. 4. Tell us about the film’s visual effects. A. Then we’re also doing something which has not really been done before – and certainly not to this extent – which is facial capture technology and is entirely separate from the physical body capture where you have to think yourself back into the scenes that you’ve already shot without moving your body so that you’re just moving your face to the scenes whether you have any dialogue or not. It was especially challenging, as you have to think back to scenes already filmed and move just your face, not your body, whether you had any dialogue or not. There was one instance where I had to do the entire ballroom waltz with just my face, which was quite interesting. I would walk on the set to film a scene where I am speaking to Lumière but I would be looking at an LED light on a stick and hearing Ewan’s voice. It was like an extra level of weird that we had to deal with. I did get to meet all the actors quite early on as their human incarnations, which helped before I had to go in and shoot with them as objects. The puppeteering of the suit for the performance capture aspect was an ordeal for my calf muscles, let alone my whole body, and working with the technical teams to figure out how the stilts worked left my toes numb for about a week. A lot of it is not really stunt work, it’s just general movement. But the physical management and training just to get myself in shape and build up my strength took a lot of time and effort. 5. How was it working with Emma Watson (Belle)? A. She’s great. There’s such a close relationship there, and I was very keen to calibrate the Beast according to the Belle that Emma wanted to be and to play, so we spent a lot of time together just talking about beauty and beastliness, men and women and masculinity and femininity, good and evil and all sorts of polar opposite things. We tried to work in some of those things and ultimately realized that the tale is not so much about an ugly thing and a beautiful girl but about the beauty and the beast that’s in all of us and the two sides each person has and learning to live with that balance. She’s a very interesting girl and is very intellectually engaged with the fairy tale, and that just makes for a much richer working experience. I hope that helps fuse all of our scenes. 6. Can you talk about Alan Menken and the film’s incredible music? A. Working with Alan has been quite an experience. It’s funny, because “Beauty and the Beast” is one of those songs that just pop into my head at the oddest times, so it’s been incredible getting to spend a lot of time with that song. He’s quite an amazing man and is hilarious on top of everything. Every
3 musical idea that comes out of his mouth sounds like a Broadway hit. He was in the studio for our pre-‐records and he just got right in there because he really knows what he wants. One of the great things about the animated film was the blend of romance and classic fairy tale with a bit of humor and fun, and that’s something we’ve really tried to retain in this film: the romantic side with a bit of the silliness. “Days in the Sun” is my favorite song…it’s just beautiful. It is as heartwarming and beautiful as any of the songs from the animated film. It’s got a sort of classic feel to it. And Alan wrote a new song for my character, “Evermore,” which I hope people will enjoy, too. 7. Was there a lengthy rehearsal process? A. We had a couple of months of what I like to call, musical theater camp where we were singing, dancing and training every day. Just trying to get my body in shape for the scenes where I was a Prince were exhausting. Bill was certain that the Prince was a good dancer so I had to become a good dancer as well, and we had a lot of dance rehearsals. Anthony Van Laast, the choreographer, and his team were extraordinary when training me. They worked with me on the proper way to hold myself and move in the right way, which was very helpful. 8. Can you talk about the scope and the scale of the production? A. Sarah Greenwood and her department have done an amazing job, as all the sets are incredibly lavish, and Jacqueline Durran’s costumes are unbelievable. I had a lot of fun with the debutante ball in the castle ballroom…it was me and 60 princesses in big meringue dresses and jewel encrusted wigs. The attention to detail on this film is absolutely amazing. You can walk into any department at any time to get a sense of how enormous this production really is. Every day you come to set there is something new and epic and you can immediately tell how much work has gone into creating it…it is quite incredible. 9. How was it shooting the iconic ballroom scene? A. It was quite strange actually, because it was one of the first things we shot and people were still getting used to seeing me as the CGI Beast, which is essentially a muscle suit covered in gray Lycra with markers and a skull cap, which doesn’t look very beastly. But once we started to waltz, it was quite magical actually. Emma and I had a lot of fun learning that waltz, and it wasn’t easy on stilts. But walking onto that ballroom set for the first time was amazing. It’s one of the most sensational rooms I’ve ever seen…and then a couple of weeks later it was gone. 10. How was it working with the rest of the cast? A. Well, Kevin Kline has this wonderful sort of eccentricity about him and he’s got so many ideas and is always thinking about things and wanting to talk about them, which is kind of great. Josh Gad is hilarious and while I don’t have nearly enough to do with him in the film, it’s been great to hang out and get to know him. Luke Evans is just perfect as Gaston, and getting to hear Audra McDonald sing live for a couple of days was pretty cool. She brings an amazing wealth of talent to the song “Days in the Sun” and it was fun seeing her in those really extravagant costumes…I think her wig alone is one of the masterpieces of this film. Her character has this wonderful dog that accompanies her and Stanley Tucci, who is also wearing an epic wig and has some very special teeth going on as well. It’s just a really, really fun bunch of people, and when everyone was together in their human form there was a sense that we were doing something really special. It was really nice working with Emma Thompson…we talked a lot about the relationship the Beast has with her character, Mrs. Potts, because obviously she is the closest thing to a mother figure he has. She’s like his strict aunt who keeps him in line, so it was nice to chat