Wish Interview: Chris Pine On Magnifico’s Villainous Arc & His Surprising Likability

Wish follows Asha, a teenage girl living in the kingdom of Rosas, which is ruled by the powerful King Magnifico. Although the entire kingdom looks up to him, Asha discovers a dangerous secret about Magnifico and looks to the stars for help. When they answer, much to her surprise, with a magical star coming to her assistance, Asha, Star, and her goat Valentino take up a mission to save Rosas from Magnifico’s machinations.

Wish stars a powerhouse cast led by Ariana DeBose, Chris Pine, Alan Tudyk, Angelique Cabral, Victor Garber, Natasha Rothwell, Jennifer Kumiyama, Harvey Guillén, and Evan Peters. This year is the 100th anniversary of Walt Disney Animation Studios. Wish is the culmination of the storytelling and animation style they have brought to the big screen. The movie is co-written by Jennifer Lee and Allison Moore and directed by Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn.

Screen Rant interviewed Wish star Chris Pine. He discusses being a part of the 100th anniversary Disney animated movie and bringing likability to his character. Pine also explained how he approached Magnifico’s arc as a villain and how he recorded his big villain song for Wish.

Chris Pine Talks Wish

Screen Rant: The movie is incredible. The perfect way to celebrate a hundred years of Disney animation magic in my opinion, and you are fantastic as Magnifico. Great villains have always been a really big part of Disney’s legacy. Can you talk to me a little bit about wanting to honor that legacy while making the character your own?

Chris Pine: Yeah. Obviously, it’s a big honor to be asked to be a part of the 100th anniversary of a company who’s known for making lasting memories in pretty much every child on the planet. So, I was honored to be asked to be a part of it to work with Chris and Fawn, who have an extraordinary track record of making great animated films. And working with Julia and Ben, who are incredible songwriters. So I knew I had a big task ahead of me and to work opposite Ariana, who’s won an Oscar for her incredible performance in West Side Story and Victor Garber, who’s been on Broadway a thousand times. I knew I was in pretty… The bar was set.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then can you talk to me a little bit about showing Magnifico’s descent into villainy through your voice acting, especially with his big villain song?

Chris Pine: So, Magnifico has a really fun ride. He goes from being the powerful, charming king and the center of attention and basking in the glow of the adoration of his minions or whatever. And then exactly, like you said, he kind of descends into a bit of loony, madcap, bad guy-ness and then ends up kind of puttering and squealing and mewling at the end. It was a fun thing to play.

As we were recording it, Fawn and Chris wanted me to come back kind of over and over again to really see how much we could take that bad guy villainous and to what extent we could do it. And it was a lot of fun. It was a lot more exertion than I thought it would be. I found myself in the booth having to really just exert myself physically to kind of get the different qualities they wanted to come out. I had a lot of fun with it.

I love that. And then, can you talk about infusing Magnifico with likability while still making sure that the more villainous tendencies come out? Because I found myself enjoying him more than I felt like I should.

Chris Pine: Yeah. I think that’s what you want to give your audience, precisely that experience of like, “Oh God.” You love to hate him and hate to love him kind of thing. So, it was all in the writing, and Jennifer just wrote a beautiful script with funny moments, and with a lot of charm, and I love playing that color. So really I think it had greatly to do with the writing and the directing and the writers and the directors allowing me to kind of play with it.

And then I think Magnifico’s song might be my favorite on the soundtrack. I think I’ve listened to it about 10 times since seeing the movie. What was maybe the most challenging part of recording that? Because there’s such a different breadth of dynamics that you bring into that song.

Chris Pine: 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.

Yeah.

Chris Pine: And 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. So 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.

About Wish

In “Wish,” Asha, a sharp-witted idealist, makes a wish so powerful that it is answered by a cosmic force—a little ball of boundless energy called Star. Together, Asha and Star confront a most formidable foe—the ruler of Rosas, King Magnifico—to save her community and prove that when the will of one courageous human connects with the magic of the stars, wondrous things can happen.

Check back for our other Wish interviews:

• Ariana DeBose
• Jennifer Lee
• Chris Buck & Fawn Veerasunthorn
• Peter Del Vecho & Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster Jones