“I’ve been offered many witches over the years, starting when I was 40, and I said no to all of them,” Meryl Streep told Entertainment Weekly in this week’s issue of the magazine wherein “Into The Woods” graces the cover. Clearly she changed her mind for Rob Marshall’s dark adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s beloved musical. “But this was really fun because it played with the notion of what witches mean. They represented age and ugliness and scary powers we don’t understand. So here’s my opportunity to say, here’s what you wish for when you’re getting old.”
Intertwining the plots of several Brothers Grimm fairy —”Little Red Riding Hood,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Rapunzel,” and “Cinderella“— the musical is about a baker and his wife, their wish to begin a family and their interaction with the witch (Streep) who has put a curse on them.
There’s an all-star cast including Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Tracey Ullman, Christine Baranski, Johnny Depp, Lucy Punch and more. And you’ve perhaps seen glimpses of Johnny Depp in the trailer and in photos, but this is our first real look at the actor hamming it up in make-up and elaborate costume once again.
“I didn’t want this to look like a cartoon world,” director Rob Marshall told the magazine. “It’s not sunny, sunny, sunny —we wanted a sense of danger.” But this is likely “Disney danger” — the movie is rated PG after all. We’ll assume as much, but hopefully it’s not too sanitized. “Into The Wild” opens wide on December 25th. It’s unclear if something as potentially fluffy like this could be an Oscar contender, but Streep is always one to watch out for. Check out the new EW covers and photos below.
