Provocation and avant-garde, pure London.
Vivienne Westwood facing the establishment of fashion and society, that Notting Hill with squatted houses”. It is the image that came to Craig Gillespie (Me, Tonya; Lars and a real girl) when he was offered to direct the origin story of one of Disney's most iconic villains, Cruella de Vil.
She had a blank page about her past and the filmmaker filled it in with punk music and attitude, of misery but genius, of sadness and fun. cruel It is the result of that work, of that attempt not to make a film that is too Disney within Disney, to respect what we knew about this woman who loves fur (preferably black and white) and with few human friends.
seventies london of David Bowie's The Clash, Vivienne Westwood's The Stooges It is the London in which Estella, the original name of Cruella, grows up, in a squat with her two friends of hers, Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser). In that London her rebellious spirit explodes. She had been born to challenge the world and what better time than that decade in the English capital.
Cruella on Portobello Road.
And precisely for this reason, Gillespie refused to enclose the entire production in studios and sets (they shot in Shepperton). He wanted to get Cruella and the movie out to the streets of London, something not so usual in a film of this size. Through 65 days in the fall of 2019 they shot in 32 natural locations in London. Although, obviously, they had to alter and intervene a lot in the spaces because from the 70s to today many things have changed.
One of the most recognizable and important locations, already from the trailer, is LibertyLondon, the famous London shopping arcades, located in Soho, a dream for someone like Estella, who dreamed of being a fashion designer. The day comes, she gets her job there, only she ends up cleaning floors.
Because they never close at Liberty, they only had one early Sunday morning to shoot the exterior scenes when Estella (Emma Stone) It arrives with all the illusion of it. The rest of the more closed planes of the facade or the interiors were recreated on set, confirms the art director, Fiona Crombie. She saved the offices that the protagonist cleans thoroughly and found in another building in the city.
Liberty, everything begins here.
Estella's gang's hideout was built on a set, although they were inspired and took it as a reference “those grandiose buildings in Notting Hill and central London that were abandoned in the 1970s.” Nearby, to Portobello Road, she goes in search of fabrics and inspiration to revolutionize fashion and bust the system. "I am a woman, hear my roar."
Another of the places that Estella worships on her arrival in London is Regent's Park. She sits at the fountain for the first time when she gets there, by herself. She there she meets Jasper and Horace. There she will make one of her most provocative appearances as Cruella.
Cruella in Regent's Park.
Regent's Park is closer to the opposite London that Estella/Cruella's nemesis represents in the film, The Baroness (Emma Thompson), a rich woman, very rich, the most famous and respected designer of the moment… although she may be running out of time. For the exteriors of her workshop, The House of Baronesses, inspired by those of Christian Dior, they chose Westminster, next to The Mall. And for some of her appearances, other stately locations in the city, such as Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.
Emma Thompson is crueler than Cruella.
To find her city mansion and her country castle, Hellman Hall, They left London. The exteriors of the first were shot in RAF Halton, a military station in Buckinghamshire. The spooky castle, where her wacky parties take place, is a familiar location on screen: Englefield House, near Reading. You've seen her in X-Men: First Generation and even in The Crown, but it'll be hard for you to recognize her because, thanks to visual effects, they've given her the look of a fairy tale villain, of a Disney villain, of the for best villain, Cruella, darling.
Hellman Hall.