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The everyday London life of Lily Cole, English model and actress, may be not quite a fairy tale, but in movies she's carved out quite the niche: Valentina in the fantastical The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, a fair (and slain) maiden in Snow White and the Huntsman. And as she helpfully points out, there's definitely a resemblance between her and that girl from Brave. We got on the phone with Cole recently to talk about why we're so drawn to old folklore, and what we can still learn about morality from giants.
MARK SVARTZ: Thanks for taking the time out this morning. Sounds like you've got a lot going on these days.
LILY COLE: I'm actually in hair and make-up at the moment. I'm going to an event this afternoon to meet the Queen. The real Queen, not the fairy-tale one.
MS: Right, no big deal. Just one of those meet-the-Queen days. What was your favorite fairy tale as a kid?
LC: Um, I'm not sure if it's fair to call it a "fairy tale," but I really loved Mulan, the Disney film. It was my favorite. I guess it's not really a fairy tale, but you do get Eddie Murphy as a dragon.
MS: In that case, I'll count it.
LC: Okay, good, because that's probably number-one. I liked The Little Mermaid, too, though I think that's kinda narcissistic, because she had red hair.
MS: That seems fair. There weren't many redheaded princesses to look up to.
LC: It's true. We got shortchanged.
MS: Did you ever read any of the classic Brothers Grimm tales growing up?
LC: Not so much. I wish I could pretend I was really cool and only read Brothers Grimm, though I have since and really love them. They're much darker. And there's always some kind of moral in them, so that even though they're fairy tales, they're very human.
MS: A lot of times it's the creepy, screwed-up side of human. Even Snow White has a queen who wants to eat her step-daughter's heart. That's nuts!
LC: I know. It's very German.
MS: It's funny. It feels like Hollywood just discovered the big book of fairy tales buried under some pillow, and now they're remarking all of them.
LC: If you're more cynical, you'll see that they've had several very successful fairy-tale films, so now they're releasing a flurry of more. But CGI is making it popular in a different way.
MS: One of my favorites growing up was Jack and the Beanstalk.
LC: They're making that, too, aren't they?
MS: I think I read they're doing two versions of it.
LC: [Laughs] Of course they are.
MS: I think one of the Jack movies is going to show the giant as the good guy. In the original tale, the giant really is the victim. He's just living his peaceful life in the clouds when some punk comes trespassing, steals his food and golden goose. Then when he tries to get it back, he gets murdered, leaving his wife a poor giant-widow.
LC: It's a tough life. Well, we've done a similar twist with Snow White and the Huntsman. This version is quite masculine.
MS: What's your character in the movie?
LC: She's a girl who gets taken in. Her role is to show the fate of all the girls — this sounds so fairy-tale — under the evil queen's reign. She gets the life sucked out of her face by Charlize's character.
MS: Because you're too good-looking for her?
LC: Exactly.
MS: It'd be interesting to find out if the real Queen does the same thing.
LC: It's so weird talking about fake queens as I'm about to meet a real one. It's extraordinary, isn't it?
MS: It makes me wonder if other fairy-tale characters still exist.
LC: Well, they're not making as much money off of it if they do exist. But I guess there are dwarves. And there are huntsmen. Actually, it's all quite real.
MS: Everything except for the talking mirrors.
LC: You don't find that your mirror talks to you in the morning?
MS: No, but I don't think I'd want a truth-spouting mirror. Maybe just a conversational mirror. Like a roommate who looks like me. Don't you think it's time someone starting writing a whole new batch of fairy tales, instead of pulling from the 1800s?
LC: It'd be nice, but Pixar kind of does it. Brave. I hope I get credit for it somewhere, because she's blatantly me.
MS: I'm a little jealous. I don't have any Pixar characters who look like me.
LC: Maybe because they haven't seen you yet. You just need to photograph more.
MS: So if I start modeling, it'll be straight to cartoons?
LC: That's the only reason I modeled. So that Pixar would create a character who looked like me.
MS: And as a bonus, now you have a really easy Halloween costume.
LC: True.
MS: Maybe that was the Brothers Grimm's real intention: that in the future they would fill the world with somewhat trampy Halloween costumes.
LC: I can only guess that would be the least of their concerns. Though trampy Brothers Grimm characters are about as good as it gets.
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Mark Svartz is an artist and creative director and author of the book I Hate You, Kelly Donahue
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