Hector Gutierrez
May 18, 20232 min
The movie is a love letter to Vietnam, where a free-spirited tour guide helps a young woman on a work trip open her eyes to the beauty of life.
The experience was honestly unlike anything I’ve ever gotten to do! The whole film was done on location meaning that as I, Morgan, was exploring Vietnam, I felt like I was living through my character Robin as well.
It’s actually a sequel with time travel! And definitely what you can expect from Ella is a character with a little more ‘tude and sass than maybe past Cinderellas which was really fun for me. Expect a lot of bops and fun dance numbers! Oh, and the hair… she’s colorful.
Truly the 2 are very very different! Approaching theater is very much about being able to both feel the piece you’re doing and simultaneously convey it to people that may be a hundred feet away from you! It’s expressive and needs to be projected for audiences to feel encapsulated by the story. Approaching film, on the other hand, is of course more natural. The camera catches everything, so I typically like to have some sort of inner monologue going on with my character during scenes. You especially don’t want to force anything when it comes to film.
Honestly, it’s really easy! Music and acting have always both coexisted and merged together in my life. I’m always writing or singing or playing the piano or guitar in my free time, whether it be on set or off. Plus, I’ve already gotten to do a Broadway show & two movie musicals! So, I never really feel like I have to neglect one or the other.
We filmed "The Prom" around the time that doing the renegade TikTok dance was popular, and I just remember one day during filming randomly, I made it my goal to teach it to as many people as I could. So, I just went around set offering to teach other dancers and some of background the renegade. I was relentless about it too. It was a lot of fun at least for me!
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