Some actors take issue with being called “a princess,” but Dove Cameron isn’t one of them.
The Disney Channel star relishes that label, prompted by her role in Disney’s Descendants, director Kenny Ortega’s upcoming adventure comedy with musical numbers that was filmed here last summer.
Cameron, 19, was treated like royalty while shooting scenes downtown and at Hatley Castle for what Entertainment Weekly has described as “the year’s most-hyped Disney Channel original movie.”
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“I didn’t realize that many people would turn out,” Cameron said with a laugh, recalling crowds that swelled while Ortega filmed outside the B.C. legislature, masquerading as a fairy-tale castle in the kingdom of Auradon.
In one eye-catching sequence, Cameron, who plays Mal, daughter of evil Maleficent (Kristin Chenoweth), pulled up in a white horse-drawn carriage with Ben (Mitchell Hope), son of Belle and the Beast, amid much pageantry, and bows and cheers from a colourful throng of background performers.
It was the last week of filming for the modern-day fairy tale that also introduces Evie, Carlos and Jay, teenage descendants of classic Disney villains the Evil Queen, Cruella de Vil and Jafar.
Cameron’s co-stars in the movie Ortega choreographed with Paul Becker, his Victoria-born longtime collaborator, include Booboo Stewart, Sofia Carson, Cameron Boyce and Kathy Najimy.
Prince Ben’s first proclamation would be to offer the teenage troublemakers who were exiled to Isle of the Lost a shot at redemption by sending them to a prep school in Auradon. He hoped the positive influence of their classmates, the offspring of classic Disney heroes including the Fairy Godmother, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel and Mulan, might rub off on them.
Cameron, best known for playing 16-year-old identical twins Liv and Maddie in the Disney Channel series that airs Fridays at 6:30 p.m. on Family Channel, is no stranger to fandom, with 560,000 Twitter followers
Still, she admits she was caught off-guard by the huge turnout at the legislature.
“We act around people all the time, and background performers, but what was really distracting was that people came with professional cameras,” said Cameron, who also attracted some paparazzi and hecklers.
“It did nothing but add to the positive energy on set, though, and how big it all felt,” the Los Angeles-based actor said.
Filming for the movie that also premières on Family Channel this summer took place during a busy year for Cameron, who can be seen this month alongside Jessica Alba and Samuel L. Jackson in Barely Lethal.
She taped the first half of Liv and Maddie’s second season before shooting Descendants here and in Vancouver for two months, then returned to Los Angeles to complete her sitcom’s remaining episodes.
“It’s funny because you can see in the first Liv and Maddie episodes I start out all high-energy,” she said. “Then, in the second half, Liv and Maddie are way quieter and more sarcastic. I was so tired.”
Cameron said she has never had as much fun in a movie role as she did playing Mal.
“It was such a huge challenge to bring to life a character that could be stereotypical on paper, and could be so easily flat and evil and one-dimensional, and make her into somebody who is simultaneously not so evil that she was unrelatable,” she said.
“But she also [had to be] so aspirational young girls wanted to be her, and maybe guys wanted to be with her. And mothers and fathers wanted their daughter to be like her.”
The challenges of portraying her purple-haired character in a movie described as High School Musical with a fairy tale twist also attracted her to the role.
Working with Chenoweth was a blessing, said Cameron, who gleaned pearls of wisdom from her stage and screen idol.
“She told me: ‘Of all the greatest loves in your life — relationships and other passions — if this performing life is not your greatest, you’ll never make it,’” Cameron said.
“She said there’s no feeling for her like being onstage and she thinks that’s the reason she’s been around so long because there’s no man, and no other life path that could make her give it up. It’s just her destiny.”
Chenoweth also imparted advice about the importance of being “professional and kind and generous” and never having a big ego.
“She’s just the most humble and angelic person I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with.”
There was another intriguing aspect to playing opposite Chenoweth, who originated the role of Glinda in Wicked on Broadway, she said.
“I always draw parallels between Descendants and Wicked because it’s like the retelling and the other side of a classic story we all grew up with.”
Cameron said she was thrilled to learn Descendants would shoot in the hometown of friend and fellow Disney star Calum Worthy (Austin and Ally).
“I love Calum!” gushed Cameron, who reunited with Worthy on the Montreal stop of the Tween Stars Live Canada tour he’s hosting.
“It was my first time working in Victoria, but I’m from Seattle so I felt right at home,” she said.