Entertainment
Weekly’s
collector’s
editionThe
Ultimate Guide
to Beauty and
the Beast is on
sale March 3
wherever
magazines are
soldprecise time and place and that its sets
be physically built instead of computer-
generated. “I was intent on making as much
of the movie exist in reality, make it flesh and
blood,” Condon says. “Because we knew we’d
have CG objects and a CG Beast, [I wanted
those] to be surrounded by a real world.”
As research, Greenwood visited a number
of French castles, including the Loire Valley’s
Château de Chambord, which inspired the
Beast’s home in the original 1991 animated
movie. “The castle in our film is based on
18th-century architecture,” she says. “But it
also had to be kind of Gothic. It’s not an 18th-
century château per se—it’s a hybrid.” France
in the early 18th century was loco for rococo,
and that style’s ornate curves influenced both
the design of the castle and that of the house-
hold staff. “You look at these objects from the
period and you could discern a face in a
candlestick, or in these incredible clocks, or
these ornately painted teapots,” says Condon.
Another inspiration was filmmaker Jean
Cocteau’s 1946 version of the story. “It’s such
a poetic movie,” he adds. “I really wanted that
sense of mystery and delicacy.”
The director also wanted the castle to seem
like it too was alive—and keen to encourage
the love between Belle and the Beast. “When
the magical aspects of the house decide they
want to help make this love affair work, the
ballroom comes to life,” Condon says. “I
don’t want to give away too much. But you
need music to dance to, right? And so you’ll
see these beautiful cartouches [engraved
tablets] with carved musical instruments that
start to come to life and provide the back-
ground music for the dance.”
Like Evans, Condon found that walking
onto the finished sets was a daily wonder.
“Extraordinary!” he says. “This was on a
scale bigger than I’d ever worked.” As for
Greenwood, the production designer
doesn’t quite seem to believe her luck. “To
design a fairy-tale castle?” she says. “Are you
telling me that’s not the biggest treat in the
world?”Bien sûr que non!XBALLROOM FLOOR
The design is based on the
ornate ceiling of a Benedictine
monastery in Bavaria called
Braunau in Rohr Abbey. One
major new addition? “In the
middle of it, there’s a mono-
gram,” says Greenwood. “It’s a
‘WD’—as in ‘Walt Disney.’ ”HALLWAY
STAIRCASE
“There are no
right angles,” says
Condon. “It’s
almost like the
house is starting
to melt. There is a
real Gaudí-esque
aspect to it.”MBATHA-RAW: JASON LAVERIS/FILMMAGIC; THOMPSON: FREDERIC/GEISLER-FOTOPRESS/PICTURE-ALLIANCE/DPA/AP IMAGES; MCDONALD: MIREYA ACIERTO/GETTY IMAGES; CHARACTERS,
BLUEPRINT: DISNEY (4); BEHIND THE DESIGN PHOTOS: LAURIE SPARHAM/DISNEY (4)