49 Fun Facts About Anastasia (1997)

Who directed and produced the 1997 animated film Anastasia?

Don Bluth and Gary Goldman had walked out of Disney together in 1979 to make rival cartoons, and Fox spent more than $100 million building them a studio for this one.

How do Rasputin's demons try to kill Anya aboard the ship carrying her toward Paris?

By making her sleepwalk overboard: a dream sent by the demons walks her to the rail in the night, and Dimitri pulls her back at the last moment.

Fox built the animation studio that made Anastasia in which Arizona city?

Phoenix won the studio with job-training funds and cheap loans, and about a third of its 300 artists had followed the directors over from their old studio in Dublin, Ireland.

Who voiced the adult Anya in Anastasia?

Meg Ryan hesitated over the part, so the filmmakers animated a scene to dialogue from one of her own romantic comedies and screened it for her; she signed on.

Who provided Anya's singing voice in Anastasia?

Liz Callaway only came in to record demos, hoping they might lead to some background singing, and the songwriters liked them so much that her voice stayed in the film.

Who voiced the conman Dimitri in Anastasia?

John Cusack spoke the part but freely admitted he couldn't sing, so stage performer Jonathan Dokuchitz took over whenever Dimitri burst into song.

Which Frasier star voiced the former nobleman Vlad in Anastasia?

Kelsey Grammer did what the film's two romantic leads did not: he sang his own songs, while their musical numbers were handed to Broadway voices.

Who voiced the villain Rasputin in the 1997 film Anastasia?

Christopher Lloyd beat Peter O'Toole to the role for a simple reason, the screenwriter recalled: children didn't know O'Toole, but they had all seen Back to the Future.

Which Simpsons voice actor played the bat Bartok in Anastasia?

Hank Azaria had the directors laughing within ten minutes of his audition, beat Martin Short to the part, and ad-libbed lines for the bat's kung-fu routine.

Who voiced the Dowager Empress Marie in the 1997 film Anastasia?

Angela Lansbury crossed enemy lines for the part: six years earlier she had been a Disney voice, the singing teapot Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast.

Which Broadway legend voiced Marie's cousin Sophie in Anastasia?

Bernadette Peters sings the film's big Paris production number herself, and her Sophie is the gatekeeper whose quiz decides whether Anya gets to meet the Empress.

Who voiced the young Anastasia's speaking lines in the 1997 film?

Kirsten Dunst only spoke the part: Lacey Chabert sang the child's songs, and with the adult role split the same way, four performers share one princess.

Which songwriting duo wrote the songs for Anastasia?

Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens were in a New York café when someone pitched an undead Rasputin with a bat sidekick; when they took the story to the stage, they cut both.

Which song was the first the songwriters completed, written during a heatwave?

They joked about sweating while writing winter imagery.

Which Anastasia song earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song?

Journey to the Past had the bad luck to be nominated in the year of Titanic: the Oscar went to "My Heart Will Go On".

Which R&B singer performed Anastasia's Oscar-nominated song at the 1998 ceremony?

Aaliyah sang it at the Oscars because her pop version closes the film over the end credits; inside the story the song belongs to the heroine's Broadway singing voice.

Years before meeting Anya, how had Dimitri already crossed paths with the real Anastasia?

As a palace servant boy he opened the hidden door that let the princess escape, which is how he later knows that Anya's hazy memory of that night can't have been coached.

In Anastasia's 1926, Saint Petersburg officially had which name?

Leningrad had been the city's name since 1924, in honour of Lenin, but the film's opening number is still called "A Rumor in St. Petersburg".

What three words are inscribed on the necklace Marie gives Anastasia?

Together in Paris is the only clue the amnesiac Anya has to her past, so ten years later those three words send her across Europe to find whoever gave them to her.

Which tsar hosts the ball that opens Anastasia?

Nicholas II hosts a party the film has moved: the real Romanov tercentenary was celebrated in 1913, three years before the 1916 ball that opens the story.

What does Rasputin give up in return for the power to destroy the Romanovs in Anastasia?

His soul buys him a curse and a wretched afterlife: when he drowns with the job unfinished, he is left stuck in limbo as a living corpse for the next ten years.

The 1997 film Anastasia drowns Rasputin under river ice, but how did the real Rasputin die in 1916?

Murdered by Russian nobles who feared his hold over the royal family: they shot him and dropped the body into an icy river, so the real Rasputin ended up under the ice too.

How does the young Anastasia lose her memory in the 1997 film?

She hits her head boarding a train: her grandmother is hauled onto the moving carriage, the girl's hand slips, and she wakes on the platform with no idea who she is.

What does Dimitri do with the reward for finding Anastasia?

Turns it down: the whole con was built around that money, but by then he has fallen for the woman he meant to pass off as a princess and wants nothing for bringing her home.

What does Anya name the stray puppy she meets after leaving the orphanage?

Pooka settles the plot before it starts: Anya, torn at a crossroads, asks for a sign, and the puppy grabs her scarf and tugs her down the road toward St. Petersburg.

How do Anastasia and Dimitri end the 1997 film?

They elope together, leaving only a farewell letter: having crossed Europe to reclaim her title, Anastasia walks away from life as a grand duchess for a reformed conman.

How do Rasputin's minions first attack the heroes' train in Anastasia?

By overheating the engine they turn the train into a runaway, and the three passengers have to cut their carriage loose and jump before it goes over the edge.

At which Paris theater does Anya attend the ballet in Anastasia?

The Palais Garnier is where the plan falls apart: the Empress refuses to meet one more claimant, and Anya overhears that she was recruited as part of a con.

What object finally convinces Marie that Anya is her granddaughter in Anastasia?

The music box plays a lullaby that only the two of them shared, and when Anya starts to sing along, the Empress knows she has her granddaughter back.

On which Paris bridge does Anastasia's final battle with Rasputin take place?

The Pont Alexandre III is family ground: it is named for Anastasia's own grandfather, the late husband of the Empress she has just been reunited with.

How does Anastasia finally destroy Rasputin in the 1997 film?

By crushing his reliquary under her heel she breaks the bargain that has kept him going since the night of the curse, and the sorcerer crumbles to dust on the spot.

Fox opened Anastasia nationwide just ahead of which American holiday, a slot Disney films usually owned?

Thanksgiving had been Disney territory for years, so Fox went all in on the date and even bought its Russian princess a float in the Macy's parade.

Which George Bernard Shaw play gave Anastasia its peasant-to-princess makeover story?

Pygmalion's professor and flower girl became two conmen drilling an orphan in royal manners; the directors wanted, in their words, something like My Fair Lady.

Which actress, also a busy Hollywood script doctor, did uncredited rewrites on Anastasia?

Carrie Fisher ghostwrote the scene in which Anya leaves the orphanage for Paris; as the film's composer put it, Princess Leia wrote that scene.

Anastasia's makers researched the Romanovs' story with help from former agents of which agency?

The CIA veterans, once posted to Moscow and St. Petersburg, supplied the real history, and the directors then judged it too dark and made a fairy tale anyway.

Bartok in Anastasia was first written with which comedian's voice in mind?

Woody Allen was the model for the neurotic bat until the scandal over his relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, when a studio executive suggested they forget about him.

Which Disney re-release opened a week before Anastasia?

The Little Mermaid returned to cinemas and Fox cried foul: Anastasia's screenwriter later claimed Disney did it just to knock $3 million off their opening weekend.

Disney's ABC refused Anastasia ads during The Wonderful World of Disney, giving what reason?

To avoid brand confusion, the network said, and it had a point: shoppers were already walking into Disney Stores and asking for Anastasia merchandise.

Which 1997 film beat Anastasia to number one on its opening weekend?

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, a video-game sequel, won the weekend in what Variety called an ambush, pushing the heavily promoted cartoon into second place.

Which 2000 flop closed Anastasia's studio?

Titan A.E. flopped so badly that Fox shut the studio within days of its release, leaving Anastasia, which took about $140 million worldwide, as the only cinema hit it ever made.

Anastasia out-grossed its director's 1980s hits An American Tail and The Land Before Time, both made with which producer?

Steven Spielberg backed both films, and each took about $85 million worldwide, a mark the Russian princess beat by more than $50 million.

Which fast-food chain was among the film's promotional sponsors?

The $50 million-plus campaign outspent Independence Day's marketing by more than a third.

Which toy company made the Anastasia dress-up dolls?

Galoob, the maker of Micro Machines, got more than a license: Fox let the toymaker advise its animators on how to draw the heroine's gowns, so the dolls' outfits would match the film.

What was the title of Anastasia's 1999 direct-to-video spin-off?

Bartok the Magnificent recasts the villain's sidekick as a travelling showman whose act is a fraud: the savage bear he defeats nightly is his own business partner.

Who wrote the book for the stage musical adaptation of Anastasia?

Terrence McNally had written Ragtime with the same songwriters, and they said he had no interest in just putting the cartoon on a stage, so the sorcerer and his bat were cut.

Who originated Anya in the Anastasia musical, first in Hartford in 2016 and then on Broadway?

Christy Altomare never handed the part on: after the Hartford tryout she played all the way to the final Broadway performance in March 2019, the show's 808th.

Who starred in the 1956 live-action Anastasia that Fox already owned?

Ingrid Bergman made it her Hollywood comeback: shunned for years over her affair with director Roberto Rossellini, she returned in this role and won the Best Actress Oscar.

Which famous Anastasia impostor was exposed by DNA as Franziska Schanzkowska?

Anna Anderson, in truth a Polish factory worker, kept the claim alive through German lawsuits that ran from 1938 to 1970 and ended with neither side able to prove who she was.

Anastasia earned two Oscar nominations but none for Best Animated Feature, for what reason?

The category did not exist yet: the first Best Animated Feature Oscar went to Shrek four years later, so in 1998 the film could compete only with its music.