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The magical world of Descendants is expanding with Descendants: The Rise of Red. The fourth installment in the Descendants franchise, premiering July 12 on Disney+, will introduce new faces and bring back familiar ones as well. New stars Kylie Cantrall and Malia Baker, who play Red (daughter of Alice in Wonderland’s Queen of Hearts) and Chloe (daughter of Cinderella and Prince Charming), spoke with TV Insider about this next chapter of Disney descendants. Watch the video above.
“I think what’s really interesting about this film is the new worlds that we’re introducing,” Cantrall said. “You have Wonderland, which I feel like everyone has their own idea of what Wonderland feels like. We’ve seen it interpreted in different films, but I think our Wonderland is really interesting, and it’s a bit creepy.” In Descendants: The Rise of Red, Wonderland is “very militant and everything’s very uniform, but I think that’s where Red likes to shake things up, and it’s like her playground.”
The singer added that the film also goes back in time to the early years of the Queen of Hearts (Ruby Rose Turner and Rita Ora) and Cinderella (Morgan Dudley and Brandy Norwood) at Merlin Academy, which was the “origin of Auradon Prep.” She also teased “lots of cool sets and just big musical numbers, which I think is just a nod to the older films.”
Disney / Kwaku Alston
Cinderellasburg is another new world introduced in Descendants: The Rise of Red, which is the complete opposite of Wonderland. “I think they’re the perfect contrast between each other,” Baker noted.
While Red and Chloe couldn’t be more different on the surface, these two will discover they’re more alike than they think. “I feel like Red is going through things with her mom, obviously, and she doesn’t really know who she is. Chloe has the exact same thing, but just in a separate way. She doesn’t really know who she is, but she thinks she does,” Baker explained.
Cantrall added, “I think Red, in the beginning at least, seems like she’s kind of set in her ways, too, in just how guarded she is and how cold she comes off, especially to Chloe. But then we kind of go on similar self-discovery journeys.”
Now, let’s get to those musical numbers. From the moment we heard “Rotten to the Core” in the first Descendants film, the music in the Descendants movies became a cornerstone of the franchise. “I think that’s one of the best parts about this movie, is that the musical numbers are the most pivotal scenes in the entire film,” Baker told TV Insider.
The actress and Cantrall both agreed that “Fight of Our Lives” is one of their favorites. “We go from hating each other to suddenly maybe we can work as a team,” Cantrall revealed about the track.
During their stop at TV Insider’s New York City studio, Baker and Cantrall flipped through the pages of Norwood and Whitney Houston’s 1997 TV Guide Magazine cover for Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella. In a full-circle Disney moment, Norwood reprises her role as the beloved princess in Descendants: The Rise of Red—she’s Chloe’s mom!
“I was obsessed with that movie,” Baker said about the 1997 TV movie. “I remember watching Moesha and being obsessed with her then and then discovering this icon status type of movie.”
Prince Charming in Descendants: The Rise of Red is played by none other than Paolo Montalban, Brandy’s co-star from the 1997 film. “They have a really special connection,” Cantrall said about Norwood and Montalban’s bond after all these years.
Descendants: The Rise of Red, Movie Premiere, Friday, July 12, Disney+