40 Fun Facts About Ever After

In Ever After, which real Italian artist at the royal court helps Danielle escape and dress for the ball?

Leonardo da Vinci plays the fairy godmother's part without a single spell. He helps Danielle out of a locked room, readies her for the ball and later scolds the prince for rejecting her.

Which former child star of E.T. plays Danielle, the Cinderella figure, in the 1998 film Ever After?

Drew Barrymore had played little Gertie in E.T. sixteen years earlier. Ever After reunited her with the director of her 1993 TV film The Amy Fisher Story.

Whose Cinderella does an elderly noblewoman call disappointing in the opening scene of the 1998 film Ever After?

The Brothers Grimm are summoned by the Grande Dame, who shows them a portrait of her ancestor and tells them the true story behind their tale.

Which book, a gift from her father, does Danielle treasure and quote in Ever After?

Utopia, by Thomas More, is the book Danielle's father gave her, and she is fond of quoting it. A cruel stepsister later burns the copy out of spite.

In Ever After, what does Danielle throw at Prince Henry when she catches him riding off on her horse?

An apple is what Danielle hurls at the crown prince, having taken him for a common thief. He is really fleeing an arranged marriage, and pays her to keep the meeting secret.

In Ever After, Prince Henry tries to flee an arranged marriage to Princess Gabriella of which country?

Spain is home to Princess Gabriella, the bride Henry's father has picked for him. The king gives Henry until a royal ball to choose a wife of his own instead.

Which animals does Danielle take out truffle-hunting in Ever After, one of the chores her stepmother leaves to her?

Pigs go truffle-hunting with Danielle, who also raids beehives for wax and swims in the river. The film's heroine was written to be tough and hands-on.

Ever After retells Cinderella as historical fiction set in France during which era of art and learning?

The Renaissance setting lets the film swap spells for history. The main story unfolds in the early 1500s, while the storyteller's framing scenes sit three centuries later.

Which Oscar winner, also known as Morticia Addams, plays the scheming stepmother in the 1998 film Ever After?

Anjelica Huston won praise from several critics as Rodmilla de Ghent, though Variety felt the film overplayed the villainy of the stepmother and her eldest daughter.

Where are the stepmother and her elder daughter put to work as punishment at the end of Ever After?

The palace laundry is where Rodmilla lands after the court strips her title for lying to the queen. Danielle asks only that she be treated as she once treated her.

Whose wedding gown and shoes does Danielle wear to the royal ball in Ever After, kept hidden by old Louise?

Her late mother, Nicole, left the gown and shoes that the stepmother wants for her own daughter. Danielle also borrows her name when she poses as a noblewoman at court.

In Ever After, where does the stepmother lock Danielle away to keep her from attending the royal ball?

The pantry becomes Danielle's cell when she refuses to say where the gown is hidden. It takes a famous guest from the ball to get her out.

Which part of Danielle's ball costume in Ever After was built from piano wire and silk tulle?

The wings were created by Naomi Cricher as a piece of their own, apart from the gown Danielle wears to the ball.

Ever After was adapted into which new form, premiering in 2015 at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse?

A stage musical of Ever After opened with a book and lyrics by Marcy Heisler and music by Zina Goldrich. An earlier premiere planned for San Francisco had been postponed.

In Ever After, what does Prince Henry say his talks with Danielle have inspired him to build?

A university is Henry's grand plan, and the storyteller says the couple did build it. Danielle's portrait hung there until the French Revolution.

In Ever After, what does Danielle set out to buy with the coins Prince Henry pays for her silence?

A servant's freedom is what she is after. Disguised as a noblewoman, Danielle goes to court to buy back old Maurice, and the impressed prince orders him released.

Why does Prince Henry halt his own wedding to a foreign princess at the altar in Ever After?

She loves another man, who is standing among the guests, and Henry sees that neither of them wants the match. He calls it off and goes looking for Danielle.

Which Scottish actor, later the villain of Mission: Impossible 2, plays Prince Henry in Ever After?

Dougray Scott got his international breakthrough as Prince Henry. Overruns on Mission: Impossible 2 later cost him the part of Wolverine in X-Men.

Which New Zealand actress, later a lead in Yellowjackets, plays the stepsister Jacqueline in Ever After?

Melanie Lynskey plays Jacqueline, the stepsister who ends up siding with Danielle. She had made her film debut as a teenager in Heavenly Creatures.

Which filmmaker, who went on to make Sweet Home Alabama and Hitch, directed and co-wrote Ever After?

Andy Tennant followed Ever After with another costume drama, Anna and the King, starring Jodie Foster, before returning to romantic comedies.

Which French star of Jules and Jim plays the Grande Dame who narrates the 1998 film Ever After?

Jeanne Moreau plays the Grande Dame, a great-great-granddaughter of Danielle and Henry. Her scenes with two famous visitors open and close the film.

Which creator of The Rocky Horror Show plays Pierre Le Pieu, the leering merchant in Ever After?

Richard O'Brien wrote The Rocky Horror Show and played its butler Riff Raff on screen, years before turning up here as the merchant who buys Danielle.

Which future voice of Dobby the house-elf has a small early role as a royal page in Ever After?

Toby Jones spent years in minor parts like this one before his lead role as Truman Capote in Infamous brought him wider notice.

In Ever After, what is the name of Prince Henry's father, the king who invites a famous artist to court?

Francis shares a name with the real king who lured Italian artists to France, but the film's royals are no match for history. The real king's wives were Claude and Eleanor, not Marie.

Which Hollywood studio released Ever After in cinemas in the summer of 1998?

20th Century Fox opened Ever After on July 31, 1998. Made for about $25 million, it grossed about $98 million in cinemas.

In Ever After, which childhood friend of Danielle, an apprentice painter, fetches help when she is locked up?

Gustave goes to the ball himself to find the one guest clever enough to get Danielle out. He is played by a young Lee Ingleby.

Rodmilla de Ghent, the stepmother in Ever After, holds which noble rank until the royal court strips it away?

Baroness is the title Rodmilla loses for lying to the queen about Danielle. She had hoped to trade it up by marrying her elder daughter to the prince.

In Ever After, where does the royal court threaten to exile the stepmother unless someone speaks for her?

The Americas would have meant an Atlantic crossing with her elder daughter. No one at court speaks for her until Danielle steps forward.

Which annual prizes for fantasy and science fiction films gave Ever After Best Actress and Best Costume Design?

The Saturn Awards honoured the film's lead and its gowns, and also nominated the stepmother's performance and the score.

Critic Roger Ebert wrote that Ever After had the energy and zest of which 1998 swashbuckler?

The Mask of Zorro was Ebert's comparison in a three-star review. He admitted he had walked in expecting a soppy children's picture.

Ever After was filmed among the castles of which French region, with the town of Sarlat also appearing on screen?

The Dordogne supplied the royal castle, the Château de Hautefort, along with five more châteaux. One of them, La Roussie, played Danielle's family home.

The real Henry II of France, namesake of Ever After's prince, married which Florentine noblewoman at fourteen?

Catherine de' Medici wed the real Henry when both were fourteen, a match arranged while his older brother was still heir. The film's love story is pure invention.

Which British composer of the Gandhi and Groundhog Day scores wrote the music for Ever After?

George Fenton is also the composer behind the BBC's The Blue Planet and Planet Earth, and he scored several later films for the same director.

Which costume designer, an Oscar winner for A Room with a View and Mad Max: Fury Road, dressed Ever After?

Jenny Beavan's work on the film won a best-costume prize of its own, and she later added a third Oscar for Cruella.

Which Scottish band fronted by Sharleen Spiteri has the ballad Put Your Arms Around Me on the Ever After soundtrack?

Texas first released the ballad on their album White on Blonde. A remixed version, also issued as a single, is the one on the film's soundtrack.

In Ever After, where do Prince Henry and Danielle spend an outing shortly before bandits ambush the pair?

A monastery library is the day's destination, a fitting outing for so bookish a heroine. Later, at the bandits' camp, the two share their first kiss.

Which Good Will Hunting star was among the actors passed over for the role of Prince Henry in Ever After?

Matt Damon lost out after studio boss Bill Mechanic recommended another actor, who went on to win the part.

Which Ever After co-writer later earned an Oscar nomination for the screenplay of Erin Brockovich?

Susannah Grant had already co-written Disney's Pocahontas before reworking Cinderella, and Erin Brockovich followed two years later.

Which actress, later Sister Monica Joan in Call the Midwife, plays the queen of France in Ever After?

Judy Parfitt plays Queen Marie, and Entertainment Weekly's review singled her out for praise alongside the film's two leading ladies.

Which Dutch actor, a Bond villain in The Living Daylights, plays Danielle's doomed father in Ever After?

Jeroen Krabbé plays Auguste, whose early death leaves his daughter in her stepmother's hands. He is also remembered for his part in The Fugitive.