Maleficent: Mistress of Evil stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ed Skrein didn't find it all easy going on the set of the Disney sequel.
The duo play warring dark fae Connal (Ejiofor) and Borra (Skrein) who try to persuade Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) towards what they believe is the right way to deal with humanity. And playing dark fae had one surprising difficulty.
"The horns were tricky. You sort of forget they're there," Ejiofor told Digital Spy, with Skrein adding: "We would clash horns sometimes. Doorways were a particular enemy to the fae."
By the end of the shoot though, the lavish costumes had been adapted to make them "quite light" and "surprisingly functional", and they could even take their horns off if they felt the need.
While the costumes were real, the vast fairy landscape that the duo mostly filmed in was predominantly CGI. "The soundstages we were on were designed to within an inch of the whole space, and then around that would be the green screen or the blue screen," explained Ejiofor.
"I spent a bit of time looking at what the designs would be when it was fully rendered and still didn't really have a full understanding until I saw it, just how large and impressive this visual landscape was for these characters."
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Skrein added: "Me and Chiwetel saw the movie for the first time together and we came out and were like, 'OK, that's where we were'."
As with the first movie, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil deals with real-world issues and that exploration was something that attracted Ejiofor.
"I liked the idea that this one really expanded this whole idea of othering and otherness and fear of the other, I thought that was really rich and was one of the things that really made me feel very excited at being part of it," he noted.
Director Joachim Rønning has also recently spoken to Digital Spy about why the Disney sequel was moved forward seven months.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is released in cinemas on October 18.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
