Wish is the latest Disney animated film and is now available on digital. And like most notable Disney films, Wish features a queen who plays a big role in the story. PopCulture.com spoke to Angelique Cabral who voices Queen Amaya in Wish, and she talked about how much she enjoyed her role in the movie.
“I went into my first recording session, I’d kind of almost forgotten who she was,” Cabral told PopCulture. “So I remember they send you your pages, not even the script. I never read a full script. You never get a script. You just get your pages. And I remember reading it and just being like, ‘Oh yeah, this is who she is.’ And then the beauty of animation is you go in and you can play. And it’s just you with the directors and a couple of the writers. And so I got to rediscover who I was creating in real time. It was a joy. It was just an absolute joy of my life.”
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Wish focuses on Asha (Ariana DeBose), a 17-year-old girl from the kingdom of Rosas, who makes a powerful wish that’s answered by Star. It leads to the ruler of Rosas, King Magnifico (Chris Pine), taking action against Asha as he controls the wishes of the kingdom. Queen Amaya is the king’s wife and is not happy with her husband’s actions. But the interesting thing is Cabral revealed that Amaya was originally set to be the “evil queen.”
“I believe that they had had a change in the story,” she said. “And my callback, she was the benevolent, grounded, loving queen. And I did a take of that. And then again it was like, I don’t know, a couple of months. And then I got the call that I got the part. And I first of all didn’t believe it. I was like, ‘What are you talking about? This is wild. This is crazy.’ And then I cried.”
Cabral has done it all in the industry, but Wish stands out for her because she got to sing in the film. “I’ve sung my whole life. I’m very musical,” the musical theatre major said. “I haven’t sung in a long time so I was nervous, but I had an amazing coach. I went and took lessons. I felt that I poured my heart into it. And Benjamin Rice and Julia Michaels are incredible songwriters, so with them by my side in the recording studio, I couldn’t go wrong. They made it so easy. I’m an emotional person. I cried the whole day. It was surreal.”
Wish grossed $233 million at the box office. The film will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 12.
