The film features a princess, an evil step-mother, a prince, animals that can talk, original songs by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Stephen Schwartz, and a great cast that absolutely makes you believe what’s happening could be real.

And if you don’t know the story, “Enchanted” is about a few cartoon characters that get sent to the real world, but they don’t change the way they act or think. Amy Adams (who is the best part of the movie) plays a princess who meets the man of her dreams (James Marsden), but soon after the wicked step-mother (Susan Sarandon) sends her away so she can keep her throne. While in the real world Amy meets Patrick Dempsey… and that’s when it starts to get interesting. As I said, this is going to be a big hit for Disney, and families will eat it up this Thanksgiving.

So to help promote the movie I got to interview most of the cast, and the interview below is with James Marsden. During our roundtable interview he talks about what he has coming up (like "The Box," "27 Dresses" and "The Sex Drive") and what it was like making “Enchanted.” It’s a great interview and James has a lot to say.

As always, you can either read the transcript below or download the audio as an MP3 by clicking here.

Finally, if you missed the movie clips from “Enchanted” you can watch them here…and Matt already wrote a review and that’s here.

“Enchanted” opens this Wednesday at theaters everywhere.

Question: Between Hairspray and this….

James Marsden:  I’ve found my calling? Got caught having too much fun with it.  They’ve discovered who I really am.  I had my own costume.  That’s why I got cast.

When casting this, they wanted to make sure that the actor that got cast would be able to invest in the character. That was a priority whether he could sing or not.  Was it easy for you to be that non-judgmental about the character?

James: It was easy for me. I don’t want to sound like it was effortless but, when I read the script, it was very clear to me who this character was and how he should be played.  Bill Kelly did a great job of bringing these characters to life on the page.  He wasn’t exactly like the princes from say ‘Snow White’ or ‘Cinderella’ because those princes weren’t really allowed to have much personality.  He was always written larger than life, a healthy ego but it all came from a place of innocence and sincerity so that, I think, lets his narcissism off the hook.

We sense a little bit of the Disney bad guy…

James:  Gaston, yeah.  It was written that way but without being a villain.  He was always well intentioned.  That’s why when he says, ‘Thank you for taking care of my bride, peasants’, Gaston would say that and you would know that he was making a dig but Prince Edward was just genuine, a ditzy [laughs] genuine hero. I was not judgmental of the character.  It sounded like a lot of fun and, to me, it just sort of clicked.  I just felt I knew who he was and offered up to Kevin that singing was a hobby of mine and he indulged us and let us go in and practice the songs and, ultimately, we qualified to sing in the movie.

How helpful was it to do the animated part first?

James: Well, it was an interesting process.  Before I started, I was asking lots of questions about movies that require actors to go in and do voice-overs for animation.  I said ‘which one is first? How does it work?’ and Kevin reminded me that, when we went in and did the voice work which took like two hours, he said ‘you’re locking yourself into a certain degree of your character right now.  So, this is the character’s voice.  Let’s find that’. And, luckily, like I said Bill Kelly’s script was a great blueprint for this character.  It just felt natural to declare everything that needed to be declared and sung.  It was larger than life.  But, then, even with that, once we got it up on its feet and got into costume and everything, we were allowed to have fun with the characters.  A lot of the burden was taken off of me when I realized that, whatever I do on set, the animation department have the responsibility to match that because none of the animation was done before we started the live action shooting, just the voice over, the voice work.  There were sketches of the characters.  There was a still image of what the character would look like but that was it.  Kevin did show us almost like a flip book.  You know, those animation flip books of like the first twelve minutes, black and white, still images but it was never fully animated or fully alive.  So, it was great.  We actually were given a pretty good amount of creative license to do what we wanted to do within certain Disney perimeters and then the animators would go in and animate the characters.

Were you on top of that bus at all or trampled by the cyclists?

James: Well, I was on the bus for I think three or four days.  I kept thinking, ‘I could be mortified and this could traumatize me for the rest of my life’, like in the nightmarish way or I could enjoy it and I just kept thinking, ‘whenever am I going to get to do this again?’ I can safely say that I don’t think anyone has ever done this before; in tights and puffy sleeves, stabbing a bus in the middle of Times Square.  I’m the first [laughs].

When did you notice the ‘Superman Returns’ billboards?

James:  As soon as I climbed up on top of the bus [laughter] and, at the time I didn’t know I was doing ‘Hairspray’.  There was also a giant Broadway, ‘Hairspray’ billboard so someone was looking out for me, putting my resume in the background.

And the cyclists?

James:  That was the last shot of the movie for me. That was my very last shot.  Stuntmen, because they’re told to, are usually very delicate with actors and, the first couple of takes, the bicyclist would sort of bump me and I would have to fake a fall and on playback, we watched it back and it just wasn’t that funny.  I said ‘just take me out!’ [laughter].  First of all, it’s funnier, second, if I get hurt, the movie is in the can so there’s not going to be any sort of insurance claims taken out.  So he knocked the hell out of me but it’s funnier.  My voice squeaks and he just knocks me down but there was a pad in front of me and, actually, the prince’s suit is pretty padded [he indicates the big puffy sleeves] built-in air bags.

Is doing this musical thing going to be permanent in your future?

James: Well, I don’t want to overstay my welcome in any genre. But, I really did enjoy these two films, ‘Enchanted’ and ‘Hairspray’.  They were just completely different than anything I’ve ever done before and, like I said, singing has always been a hobby of mine and to be able to do it in an acting job was a lot of fun.  Both of them were fun.  I would do it again for sure.  But, in the same breath, I would also say that, to me, creatively, it’s always more interesting to do something completely different which is why I’m doing this dark, psychological thriller starting in a couple of weeks.

What is it?

James:  It’s a movie called ‘The Box’ that Richard Kelly is directing Cameron Diaz and I.  We play a married couple.  It’s based on a short story that was turned into a ‘Twilight Zone’ episode about a couple that receive this strange box from this very odd man with a button in the middle.  You push the button and someone you don’t know will die but you get this certain sum of money. [note: Oddly guys, I have a list of all the Twilight Zone titles and this isn’t in it. This doesn’t include the very latest, very bad version that was hosted by Forrest Whitaker however]

What happens next once that is set up?

James:  I’d be giving away the movie if I told you.  You’ll just have to see. Richard is really great. Obviously, I just now got to know him but when I read the script the first time, there were more elements put into the script that existed outside that premise.  I’ll get in trouble here.  But, it works, trust me.

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