When it comes to Walt Disney Animation Studios, there are many iconic characters, and fans tend to have a soft spot for the villains. In the upcoming film Wish, Chris Pine voices Magnifico, a king who has the magical ability to grant wishes. However, the film’s heroine, Asha (Ariana DeBose), learns that Magnifico has been keeping people’s wishes with no plans to make them come true. In true Disney villain fashion, Magnifico also gets to sing. ComicBook.com recently got the chance to speak with Pine, and we asked about following in the footsteps of the greats such as Scar and UrsulaUrsala. We also mentioned that Magnifico might just be Disney’s hottest villain, and he revealed what he thought when he first saw the character’s design.
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“I mean, I don’t know if I’m up there [with Scar and Ursula], but I certainly gave my best, my best effort. Credit’s really due to Ben [Rice] and Julia [Michaels] who wrote incredible music and gave me the shot to try to pull it off. I just had great fun doing it,” Pine explained. He added of Magnifico, “I thought the guy had great eyebrows.”
You can watch our interview with Pine at the top of the page.
Wish Producers Tease Magnifico:
ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with Wish‘s directors, Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn, as well as producers Peter Del Vecho and Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster Jones. During the interviews, they talked about bringing a new Disney villain to life and listening to the fans who were clamoring for a specific kind of bad guy.
“First of all, we are fans ourselves, even though we’re working for Disney Animation, we all love it,” Del Vecho explained. “And Disney villains have evolved over time and some villains are revealed, but there’s something delicious about knowing that someone’s the villain from the beginning. What makes this one unique is he’s also charming and charismatic and you actually watch him evolve as more pressure is put on him. And I believe you may not like what he does, but you’ll understand the ‘why’ because we can all relate to it, the pressure that he must feel.”
“Well, Magnifico was born out of the want to do a villain that hearkens back to some of our older villains, and it’s a villain that is the villain from very early on, and that it’s a villain that you love to hate,” Buck shared. “They come on the screen and you’re like, ‘Yes, yes. This scene’s going to get real now.’ So that was our desire. We are big Disney fans ourselves, and we had also heard from many fans about wanting another villain.”
Stay tuned for more from our interviews from Wish, which opens only in theaters on November 22nd.
