BY VANESSA CHALMERS
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

Disney’s latest animated film is not a fairy tale. Yes, there is an evil step-mother, an animal friend side-kick, a handsome beau, and a happy ending, but the logistics of this newest addition to the Disney family movie collection take a different turn from the traditional damsel in distress- meets prince charming-and lives happily ever after motif. Labeled as “a hair-raising adventure,” the film peaks interest in audiences of all ages, but despite the lead character being a princess, “Tangled” is appealing to a new viewer demographic: boys. After being locked up in a tower with a step-mother who has greedily concealed her existence for the use of her hair’s youth-giving power, Rapunzel falls in love with Flynn Ryder, the town bandit who holds the key to the secret of her past and her heart. With Flynn as her guide, Rapunzel escapes the long years of confinement in the tower, and together the pair discover each other’s – and their own – true identities along the way. Here’s what the film’s lead voices, actress/musician Mandy Moore and TV actor Zachary Levi, had to say about getting “Tangled.”

Do you think the film will appeal to both boys and girls?
Zachary Levi: I think it will absolutely appeal to both boys and girls. I think that was one of the things Disney wanted to set out to accomplish. They’ve had a lot of success in the princess world, and a lot of those princess movies also appeal to boys as well. I mean I was a little boy and I watched all of them. I don’t know what that means (laughing), but specifically from what I heard, they wanted to have a movie that was really equilateral. Yes you have this princess character of Rapunzel, but you kind of have this fresh take on it and it’s an adventure movie at its heart. It has a lot of romance and comedy and drama,
but it’s also an adventure.

I thought Rapunzel’s nervousness about leaving her tower was similar to many teenagers’ anxiety about leaving home for the first time and going to college. I was wondering what lessons do you think high school or college students could learn from “Tangled”?
Mandy Moore: I like the idea of never really questioning that little voice inside of you. Not letting fear win at the end of the day. And perhaps it’s cliché or obvious, but I like the idea that her entire life, Rapunzel’s been told that it’s her 70ft of magical hair that makes her special, when clearly it was something that was within her all along that made her special. So I think that’s always an important message to get across. When you go to a Disney film you come expecting to be entertained. You’re going to laugh, probably cry if you’re a woman, cause I know I do, and you’re also going to come out with a little life lesson. So I think there are some important themes in the film that hopefully are obvious when people leave.

So I’m sure both of you are both big Disney fans. What’s it mean to be a part of Disney’s legacy now?
Z: It’s mind melding. Growing up watching all of the films, not just the ones that are considered our generation’s starting with “The Little Mermaid” on, but I mean when I grew up the Disney channel was just starting to be what it is, and the Disney channel was one of those main staple channels, and there was no real original programming. There was no “Hannah Montana” or anything like that. I’m sure at Disney they were sitting around thinking what do we put on? Let’s just play all the old stuff. So, I would sit there after school and would just go and watch all the old cartoons like Pecos Bill and Johnny Appleseed, and Ferdinand the Bull and Lambert the Sheepish Lion, and all these other random ones. And what’s amazing is that even those, even though they were kind of featurettes, a lot of those were considered to be part of the 50. I mean we’re the 50th animated feature, which is unbelievable!
M: It was so cool to sit and see all the ones before. We went to a screening a couple weeks ago, and they literally showed from the first film that came out, up until “Tangled.” And it’s like “Oh my God, ‘101 Dalmations!’ And ‘Dumbo!’” That is so above and beyond that we’re a part of it with this movie because those movies, and “Little Mermaid” and so on were such huge parts of our childhood. They’re so ingrained in my memory, like singing every single word of “Beauty and the Beast.” And now, this movie could potentially mean to kids nowadays what those movies meant to us. It doesn’t get much cooler than that. I wanted to be Ariel.
Z: So did I. I wanted to be Sebastian, actually.
M: Flounder?
Z: No, I mean I liked Flounder, but Sebastian…
M: He’s the man.
Z: Yeah he’s the total man crab.

There are so many beautiful scenes in the film. What scenes struck the two of you?
Z: Well I think we both like the lantern scene. I think that’s going to be one of the scenes that people walk out of the theater and find beautiful.
M: What a fantasy, it’s so beautiful. Not only the light from the lanterns, but just the way the whole scene is lit, and this world that they live in, it is so romantic, and it’s so easy to get carried away with that.
Z: It’s a beautiful scene. I think the whole movie, the entire artistic direction on this film is just spectacular. The whole world that we’re running around in is just gorgeous. And it’s interesting because I know a lot of people were kind of up in arms that it’s not 2D, it’s 3D. But I don’t know if you could get the same world, I don’t know if you could paint the same picture that they do in this movie in 2D. Not that they haven’t made fantastical forests and magical lands before, obviously they have and they’ve done it very well. But, to do it in the way that they’ve done it in this movie is just incredible.
M: The detail.
Z: And the light shining through the trees.
M: Yeah, I kept watching the movie and thinking I can see every layer of clothing that Mother Gothel is wearing, and the way that the fabric moves. It’s all of those little tiny details. It’s so mind blowing to me.

Check out the beauty of Disney’s “Tangled” in theaters everywhere Nov. 24.