And now I just want to keep playing villains.
I love it."
the children of iconic Disney characters.
Rita Ora in ‘Descendants: The Rise of Red’.Disney/Quantrell Colbert
“It just made complete sense,” she says.
“I’ve learned now that I can do this,” Ora says.
“What I’ve really noticed is to build a character, you have to do the homework.
Rita Ora and Brandy in ‘Descendants: The Rise of Red’.Disney/Quantrell Colbert
And doing the research and trying to find the sense of inspiration, all the greats do that.
It was a great experiment and challenge for me.”
“I asked, ‘How far can I go?'”
Rita Ora in ‘Descendants: The Rise of Red’.Disney/Edward Herrera
Creating the costume was a whole other project.
“It was like layers on layers on layers.
It looks big on camera, but it was huge in person.
And it was on my head all day.”
Ora remembers wondering how she was going to handle wearing such a heavy headpiece during long days of filming.
“I was just like, ‘How am I going to get through this?'”
But when her first day on set finally arrived, Ora remembers feeling daunted by the task ahead.
“Oh my goodness, I was so nervous,” she admits.
Every actor that I’ve spoken to says the same thing: The first day is the worst day.
Everyone has the nervous jitters.
Disney/Edward Herrera
The biggest challenge for Ora was developing that mother-daughter relationship while also playing an evil villain.
Tough love I guess that’s the mother instinct, to be fair.
But she was hurt and felt like she had to protect herself."
“And the songs also explain a lot too, which I love.
There’s a lot of information in the music.”
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Despite their cold relationship, Ora loved working with Cantrell in their mother-daughter scenes.
“She was great.
She’s so wise for her age,” she says.
That’s why they go back in time without giving too much away.
You start discovering the origins of Auradon Prep and everything that comes withDescendants, which I love."
Ora is most excited for fans to see how dark the role gets.
“I haven’t even really tapped into that in my music videos.
So I think people are going to really love the glamour and the darkness of this role.”
As for whether that darkness could bleed into her music moving forward, Ora is all for it.
“Yeah, I mean, a more darker, cynical Rita Ora?”
“Sure, why not?
Let’s do it.”
