How Chris Pine Perfected His Disney Villain Song In New Movie Wish

Wish star Chris Pine has shared how he perfected his musical number. The new Disney animated movie, which explains the backstory of the studio’s iconic wishing star, features Pine as the capricious King Magnifico, who hoards the wishes of the people of the kingdom of Rosas. The movie musical, which features songs by Julia Michaels and Benjamin Rice with contributions from JP Saxe, includes Pine delivering the patter-based villain number “This is the Thanks I Get.”

Screen Rant had the opportunity to sit down for an interview with Chris Pine about his role in the Wish cast. When breaking down his musical number, he revealed that the recording process was “really, really hard” because he wanted to do justice to the songs. He said he enjoys the challenge because it spurs “my competitive desire to do it,” but he did have to go back and re-record certain moments to “fine-tune” the song. Read Pine’s full quote below:

It was really hard. Recording is not my specialty. And I remember the first time when I was recording, I did something with Barbra Streisand and it was the first time that I heard myself really back in the cans, so to speak. It’s a different sound than when you’re self-recording in a shower. Where you sound magnificent, where you’re actually hearing all of the micro-fine points of, if you’re hitting a note or not. I’m not as in tune as I thought I was. So yeah, it was really, really hard. And Julia is an incredible songwriter, and her phrasing is really hard, and it’s often in counterpoint to the phrasing of the music. So, it was really difficult, and I had to come in and re-record and fine-tune. But I really liked the challenge. I like feeling not good at something because it brings up all of my competitive desire to do it. And they wrote such beautiful music, and she wrote such beautiful lyrics. It was less to do with honoring the legacy of Disney, I’m afraid to say. I’m really more wanting to honor these two artists who’d written such great music.

Wish’s “This Is the Thanks I Get” Is One In A Long Line Of Villain Songs

While Pine was focusing on honoring Michaels and Rice’s music, “This is the Thanks I Get” is one of the most important Wish Disney references. As the only animated movie being released during the company’s centennial celebration, the project has the weight of the company’s legacy on its shoulders. As such, it is jam-packed with references to past Disney movies, far beyond the presence of the wishing star as a major character.

“This is the Thanks I Get” is one of the lynchpins of the movie’s overall set of references to iconic Disney moments. While the lyrical content and musical approach is quite similar to that of Maui’s song “You’re Welcome” from 2016’s Moana, it is also part of a much longer Disney musical legacy. The villain song is one of the most iconic elements of a Disney musical, perhaps second only to the “I Want” song, which establishes the protagonist’s central desires.

The villain song is the “I Want” song’s opposite, establishing the antagonist’s motivations as well as the stakes of the movie’s story. One early version, One Hundred and One Dalmatians’ “Cruella de Vil” was actually sung by the protagonists, but these are typically sung by the villains themselves, such as Ursula’s “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from The Little Mermaid, Scar’s “Be Prepared” from The Lion King, and Mother Gothel’s “Mother Knows Best” from Tangled. In order to properly pay homage to such a weighty legacy, Chris Pine’s Wish villain needed his song to be as fine-tuned as it could possibly get.