20 Years Of The Princess Diaries: Throwback To Fun Trivia And Favourite Moments, And What Feels Royally Problematic Now

20 Years Of The Princess Diaries: Throwback To Fun Trivia And Favourite Moments, And What Feels Royally Problematic Now

What? Twenty years?? SHUT UP! Now “Shut up” doesn’t always mean “shut up”. Here, it could mean ‘wow’, ‘gee whiz’, ‘golly wolly’! If the above sentence made you reminisce of a familiar tea-time moment between a queen and a bushy-haired teenager, congratulations and same pinch! You’re a fan of The Princess Diaries too! As for the ‘congratulations’, they’re in order because the Garry Marshall film completes two decades since its release today! Does that feel old or what? The popular Disney film franchise, adapted from the eponymous book series by Meg Cabot, and starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews, is already in talks for a third instalment, and fans are curious what their favourite royal from Genovia who ascended the throne in the second film, Queen Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi, would be up to in this third film! And what about former Queen Clarisse? And Joe? And OMG Fat Louie?

But while a third Princess Diaries seems still far away, today we are in nostalgia mode. And this 20th anniversary coinciding with Throwback Thursday has made me, a humongous Princess Diaries fan, want to take a trip down those sloping streets of San Francisco where we first met Mia Thermopolis as she found out she was a Princess of the fictional principality of Genovia, thus beginning her royal adventure!

The film, directed by the late legend Garry Marshall, is just as beloved as his other films, which are fun family entertainers or grand romances. And in fact, it borrows heavily from his most popular, Pretty Woman, not just in terms of themes or certain scenes, but also actors and dialogues! It is Anne Hathaway’s first major film role, and Marshall was quoted saying that her appearance and performance reminded him of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman! The Princess Diaries also brought Dame Julie Andrews (knighted just a year before the film), out of her semi-retirement in her first Disney film since Mary Poppins (1964) and her first feature film role in 15 years!

The film also starred Héctor Elizondo as Joseph/Joe, Heather Matarazzo as Lilly Moscovitz, Mandy Moore as Lana Thomas, Caroline Goodall as Helen Thermopolis, Robert Schwartzman as Michael Moscovitz, Sandra Oh as Principal Geraldine Gupta and Kathleen Marshall as Charlotte Kutaway, amongst others.

The difference between the books and the movies

While I am usually the nerd that reads the book first and watches the adaptation later, in the case of The Princess Diaries, I can’t even remember what came first and what came after. All I remember is that Mia Thermopolis was a fun character to hang out with and her world was the perfect mix of reality and fairy tale. Of course, there’s a lot of difference between Meg Cabot’s books and the movies. For starters, there are 11 books in the original series with a spin-off added later. In the books, Mia is named Amelia Mignonette Thermpolis Grimaldi Renaldo, and her father, is very much alive and kicking, unlike the books where he dies in an accident. This was done to make Julie Andrews’ role a sizeable one. Oh and did I mention, book Mia lives in New York, in a loft at Tribeca, and not San Francisco like in the film?

Furthermore, fans of the second film, The Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement, and Chris Pine, might not like this. But the books don’t exactly have a Lord Nicholas Devereaux in them! Mia does have a few suitors over the years, but her heart belongs, as it always did, to Michael Moscovitz, her BFF Lilly’s older, musician brother! Their love story is quite an intense affair actually, made even more interesting because of Mia and Michael’s rich personalities on paper, as compared to their portrayal on screen. As someone who had read Michael and was obsessed with finding a boy just like him, the on-screen version by Robert Schwartzman (who FYI is nephew to The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola and cousin to Sophia Coppola and Nicolas Cage) felt a little awkward!

But perhaps the biggest difference of all was the characterisation of Clarisse, Julie Andrews of course plays her as a stern but sweeter and graceful queen who is nothing but nice to Mia. However, the Clarisse in the books isn’t a queen; she is the Dowager Princess of Genovia, and since Genovia is a French and English speaking nation, is referred to by Mia as Grandmère. She lives at the Plaza Hotel in New York, speaks French for the most part and thinks English is vulgar, has a pet miniature poodle called Rommel, smokes like a chimney and enjoys a drink called Sidecar a lot. She is snotty often, very cold most of the time, and is downright scary! And as Mia grows into her role as a princess, so does Clarisse warm up to her modern American family, and even gives some sage advice to Mia about fashion, leadership, and her love life. She is easily one of the most formidable and interesting that I have read!

Some fun trivia about The Princess Diaries movie you might not know!

1. Whitney Houston is one of the producers of the film! In fact, one of the most iconic scenes in the film, where Mia smudges her ice cream cone on mean girl Lana’s cute cheerleader uniform was actually Houston’s idea!

2. Garry Marshal decided to shift the story’s setting from New York to San Francisco as an ode to his granddaughters. In fact, many of his family members have been cast in the film! His daughter, Kathleen Marshall plays Charlotte, the Queen’s manager. His granddaughters play twin girls who get Mia’s autograph outside her school. And his son, Scott Marshall, was the second unit director on the film.

3. Hector Elizondo, who plays Joe in the film was also in Pretty Woman, in a similar role as the hotel manager, who eventually helps Julia Roberts’ Vivian shop for a cocktail dress, and even teaches her etiquette for an important business dinner she has to attend with Edward (Richard Gere). Elizondo has acted in 18 Garry Marshall films! And he isn’t the only one. Larry Miller, who plays Paulo Puttanesca, the makeover genie in the film, was also in Pretty Woman as Mr. Hollister, the store manager who helps Vivian buy her new clothes.

4. There’s another very interesting Pretty Woman connection here. Remember the scene where Anne Hathaway’s Mia breaks a glass during a state dinner? One of the servers tells her not to worry, “It happens all the time.” A similar mishap is repeated in Princess Diaries 2, when in the start of the film, Mia waves to the crowd and the bracelet flies off her hands. It is caught by a doorman, who is played by the same actor, and once again, he says the same line to her. Turns out, in a Pretty Woman scene where Julia Roberts’ Vivian accidentally flicks a piece of escargot during the restaurant scene, it is the same actor, Allan Kent, who plays the waiter that catches it. Can you guess what he says to her? YES!

5. Did you think the whole M&Ms on pizza that Mia sends to Michael as an apology was a weird food combo? Well, there’s a very interesting story behind it too! For the film’s 20th anniversary, which also marks Anne Hathaway’s 20 years in the industry, Esther Zuckerman of Thrillist sought out the film’s screenwriter Gina Wendkos to ask about this unique pizza topping idea!

Wendkos revealed that when she was working in the writers’ room of a CBS show, one of the writers suggested they add M&Ms to their pizza one night. Initially thinking this was crazy, when they actually tried it, Wendkos thought it was “tremendous”. So when she sat down to write the romance between Mia and Michael (M & M!), she decided to add this quirky thing as something they both shared.

“It was almost like they had this private language. And this was the element that they shared that nobody else could. Everybody in the world sends flowers to say I’m sorry. People send food. People send cupcakes, but nobody sends that.”

If you notice, in the scene where Michael is introduced properly, he is playing the keyboard with his band Flypaper (they’re actually actor Robert Schwartzman’s real band, Rooney, performing their original ‘Blueside’) in the garage. And M&Ms are scattered on his keyboard!

6. Filmmaker Garry Marshall worked in a lot of things that were very specific to Anne Hathaway. For example, we see Mia practicing public speaking by reciting Shakespeare’s famous line “What’s in a name?” from Romeo & Juliet. It’s a nice nod to the fact that Anne Hathaway is named after Shakespeare’s wife, also named Anne Hathaway! Similarly, the late filmmaker also managed to incorporate Anne’s personal childhood struggles with orthodontia in the film, with Mia struggling to talk with her braces on.

There are two scenes in the film featuring Hathaway—one where she slips on the bleachers in the basketball court, and another when she douses a dinner guest’s sleeve on fire with a glass of water—which are both actually bloopers she made. But Garry Marshall liked them so much, and thought they were quite funny, so he retained them!

 

7. Anne Hathaway’s father Gerald Hathaway also stars in the film! The photos that Mia has of her father are actually of Anne’s own father IRL, and he even appears in a blink-and-miss shot (from the back) as Prince Philip! The voice is reportedly not his, but of René Auberjonois.

Four cats played Fat Louie, who is perhaps the most well-adjusted royal of all. And one of those cats, featured in the final scene of the film, actually belongs to Anne Hathaway! So cute!

8. If you, like me, ship the Queen and Joe, then you’d be delighted to know that Julie Andrews and Hector Elizondo both strongly pushed for it! The even improvised that Spanish dance you see them do in the film!

9. A lot of the actors in side characters were repeated in the second film in different characters. Remember Shades, the security officer who takes over from Joe in Princess Diaries 2? He is played by none other than Garry Marshall’s son Scott, and he appears in the first film as a journalist! Similarly, Jane Morris who plays Gretchen, the housekeeper of Viscount Mabery, is in the first film as one of the royal dinner guests, Lady Evergreen! Marshall’s granddaughters are also seen again in the second film playing two of the young princesses who show up for Mia’s bridal shower.

10. Anne Hathaway’s big bushy wig was nicknamed ‘The Beast’! No wonder it broke Paolo’s brush! Oh and those thick eyebrows that Paolo names Frida and Kahlo? They would take an hour to glue on! Yikes.

19 "The Princess Diaries" Moments That Prove It's The Best Disney Movie Of ALL TIME

Favourite quotes from The Princess Diaries!

To ask a fan like me to pick my favourites from this film is the equivalent of tying Mia to her chair with an Hermès scarf to restrain her. But I pick these five!

1. Is there a more iconic reaction?

2. Lilly Moscovitz is awesome, don’t you @ me!

 

3. Feel free to fawn over the iconic Sandra Oh as Principal Gupta, saying this iconic line!

19 "The Princess Diaries" Moments That Prove It's The Best Disney Movie Of ALL TIME | Princess diaries, The princess diaries 2001, Best disney movies

4. BEST. COMEBACK. EVER.

5. Girls, go for a guy who SEES you!

How well does The Princess Diaries hold up 20 years later?

We’re getting a third movie, aren’t we? So I’d say pretty well! The film is still very loved, and even though Anne Hathaway had once told in an interview that it got difficult for her to be taken seriously for roles after playing Mia, the fact remains that Princess Diaries really kickstarted her career. Imagine getting to work with a legend like Dame Julie Andrews in your first film! And the rest, as they say, is history! Years later, Anne Hathaway would work with Meryl Streep who, as Miranda Priestly, would also stare at her black, unflattering shoes with the same disdain as Andrews did as Queen Clarisse!

However, there still rages a considerable debate around the makeover of Mia Thermopolis, which many consider goes against the self-acceptance and body positivity movements. Particularly, the transformation of Mia’s curls into poker straight hair was found particularly unsavoury as it adhered to ridiculous beauty standards.

In fact, Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall had posted about it on Instagram about how it wasn’t cool. And another artist also critiqued it as one of those typical move makeovers that made young girls feel like unless they looked a certain way, they weren’t worth the attention and love.

 

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Well, looks like I might’ve just triggered a massive urge to rewatch this film! Happy 20 years of The Princess Diaries! You rule!

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Jinal Bhatt

A Barbie girl with Oppenheimer humour. Sharp-tongue feminist and pop culture nerd with opinions on movies, shows, books, patriarchy, your boyfriend, everything.

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