Robin Wright on Damsel: 'I think it's a really good message for young girls'

Now, some 37 years later, she's returned to the fairytale genre for Netflix's new action-adventure flick Damsel, only this time she's approaching things from the other side.

In the film – which has just arrived on the streamer – she plays the wicked Queen Isabelle, who is responsible for throwing Millie Bobby Brown's Princess Elodie into a cave, where she's greeted by a terrifying fire-breathing dragon.

Wright wasn't initially thinking about the connection between the two films when she first signed on, but now that it's been pointed out she can't help but wonder if her two characters are somehow linked, as she explains during an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com.

"Somebody recently in the press brought up the question, do you think Queen Isabelle is the older Princess Buttercup?" she muses. "And I said, 'No, please say no, that can't be! That's blasphemy, don't even think of such things!' And then we were all giggling, saying maybe she did grow up to be Queen Isabelle and she just became more angry!"

In truth, the thing that attracted Wright to the part was not any connection to her previous role but a conversation she had with the film's Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, whose previous directing credits include 28 Weeks Later and Intruders.

Wright explains that Fresnadillo was eager to get across the fact that he wanted to do something a little different from the traditional fairytale, to subvert some of the tropes of the genre that we're so used to seeing.

"The way he was describing to me how this was going to be an unconventional fairytale and in what way it was going to be, that was enticing," she says. "I just was like, this is different. He's turning it on its head a little bit, the quintessential template.

"He stepped out of the box with these two women, and I think it's a really good message for young girls: It's not a damsel in distress that's being rescued by somebody, it's self-survival."

The role of the young woman who finds herself fighting for survival is played by the aforementioned Millie Bobby Brown – a star whose work facing Demogorgons and the like in Stranger Things will no doubt have prepared her well for the threat of a fire-breathing dragon.

Wright had seen some of Brown's work in the early seasons of the sci-fi juggernaut – "when she was a little wee one" – and was very impressed working alongside her on the new film.

"She's so enigmatic [and] has an incredible presence on screen," she says. "And so authentic, right? There's not a false bone in her body when she delivers lines. She's very connected. When I met her, she was 18 or 19 years old, a young woman, and look at all that she's accomplished. It's pretty impressive!"

Although Wright's time on set was relatively limited – she worked around seven days scattered throughout the shoot – she nonetheless found herself striking up a bond with Brown, especially when she arrived to shoot some scenes in Portugal, which was the first time they were able to "relax and giggle".

And while Queen Isabelle and Princess Elodie have rather an antagonistic relationship in the film, the same is not true for that between Wright and Brown.

"I actually felt more like her surrogate mother," she says. "Because she was barefoot the whole movie! I was like, 'Get some flip flops, make sure she puts those on in between takes.'"

The supporting cast for the film also includes everyone from Love Simon star Nick Robinson to two-time Oscar nominee Angela Bassett, and there was one other cast member Wright was especially keen to work with again: Ray Winstone.

The pair had previously co-starred in the 2007 motion-capture film Beowolf, and Wright says she's a huge fan of the English actor's work.

"Sexy Beast is one of my most favourite movies of all time," she says. "I've never been really starstruck in my life. But when I first met Ray, I was starstruck, because I love that movie so much."

As with so many of Netflix's original films, Damsel will be skipping a theatrical window, instead going straight to streaming – where it will no doubt quickly find itself near the top of the service's Top 10.

Wright can understand why this decision has been taken, but she admits to being somewhat disappointed that audiences won't have the chance to see the film projected.

"I thought for sure that they would release this one in the theatre, because it's so powerful on the big screen," she says. "But obviously, it's a business decision. And that is how our business has changed, very much so."

She continues: "When you think about it, coming out of COVID and coming out of the strike, how very different working in this business is now. I don't even know what to expect. A lot of people don't, I don't think.

"What is our future? Did Barbie and Oppenheimer open the cinemas back up? To a degree, probably yeah. But it doesn't feel like it's part of our landscape like it used to be."

Wright might have understandable concerns about the place the industry finds itself in, but she's also got plenty of projects in the pipeline that are currently bringing her a great deal of excitement.

Having started her directing career by helming several episodes of the Netflix drama House of Cards – in which she starred as Claire Underwood throughout its run – she made her feature directorial debut with the 2021 film Land, and admits to having caught "the director bug", revealing that there are "so many things I want to direct".

With luck, one of those things should be the film Bingo, a comic love story that was previously announced in 2023 - and which Wright is now hopeful will shoot next year.

"Everything got a little shifty because of COVID and the strike and all, that kind of moved everybody's schedule around," she says of the film, which she describes as a Harold and Maude-inspired love story between "an older woman and a younger man, and a very special connection that they have".

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More imminently, she's getting ready for a new Prime Video series titled The Girlfriend, which will soon begin production in London. Wright will star in and executive produce the series, while she's also directing the pilot episode.

"Andy Serkis's company, the Imaginarium, brought it to me and then we got picked up by Amazon," she says. "And it's an all-British cast except for me, that's why we're shooting it here. It's me and Olivia Cooke and Laurie Davidson."

Meanwhile, she's also recently shot a film which marked a very special reunion. Thirty years after the phenomenal success of Oscar-winning drama Forrest Gump, she's reteamed with Tom Hanks, director Robert Zemeckis and screenwriter Eric Roth for a new film titled Here, which also stars Kelly Reilly and Paul Bettany.

Although she's not seen a finished version of the film yet, it's one she's very excited about, and she was especially overjoyed to spend more time with her colleagues from three decades ago.

"It was as if no time had passed," she says. "Tom, after Forrest Gump, worked many times again with Robert Zemeckis, and I worked with him three times. And then all of us getting the band back together... you couldn't ask for a better group to work with, and we just laughed so hard all the time.

"[We were always] going, 'Can you refresh my memory? Did we do blah, blah, blah when this happened?' It's going down memory lane, of course, and getting to know each other as older adults. With all of that time in between, you're different and you're discovering who each other is."

As for the film itself, Wright teases that audiences can expect to find themselves immersed in four different storylines, following various characters as they age from 18 to 80.

"That was a new challenge, for sure," she says. "Because we're doing all the acting, but, you know, the deep fake is being used to make us look younger. And in the younger scenes, we have to act physically and the voice has to change. And yeah, it was a feat... it's so much fun."

Seeing the stars of Forrest Gump back together again will no doubt be a very exciting prospect for fans of the film, which remains a favourite of so many cinemagoers three decades on from its release. So, what does Wright reckon are the reasons for its enduring appeal?

"It's a very sentimental film, but it's not sappy," she says. "And that is a testament to Bob Zemeckis, that's his special magic dust he brings to a movie. He did it in Back to the Future, you know? He knows how to grab your heartstrings in the most authentic way, because he's such a lovely man.

"And he knows where to put humour in. So, you go on this beautiful ride, that doesn't take you down to a depressing state even though the story could be depressing. Like, look at all the things that happened in Gump – a lot of bad stuff happens, but you're not crying with depression, you're crying with the hope that it brings when it comes to an end."

To bring things full circle, I wonder whether – in the age of legacy sequels – Wright would ever entertain the possibility of reprising her role as Princess Buttercup in a follow-up story set years later.

"Never," she responds without hesitation. "Never, ever, ever, please! Some things you should just leave."

Damsel is now streaming on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream. If you're looking for more to watch, check out our TV Guide or visit our Film hub for all the latest news.

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