Little Red Riding Hood is absconded from the Brothers Grimm and given a Twilight-ish overhaul in the new film, Red Riding Hood, directed by Catherine Hardwicke (who helmed the first Twilight film), produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and starring Amanda Seyfried as the crimson-cloaked Valerie, a young girl in a village terrorized by a werewolf who may or may not be one of her two suitors, played by Jeremy Irons’ son Max Irons and Shiloh Fernandez, best known as one of the three runners-up to Robert Pattinson for the role of Edward Cullen.

Seyfried, who jokes she got the part from Hardwicke thanks to her resemblance to the classic line, “My, what big eyes you have,” says she didn’t read the script before meeting with the director but was blown away by her vision for the film. “And then I met with Leonardo DiCaprio, and that was it,” she grins.

She goes on to say that she loved that her character wasn’t “the damsel in distress you find in most fairy tales. She’s a young, strong female realizing her sexuality and trying to navigate her life. She needs to have balls, and that was really attractive because I like playing women who have no fear. Especially in these circumstances, she’s pretty brave.”

However removed from the fairy tale Seyfried’s role might be, there were still imperative elements that had to be laced through the narrative, most important being the titular cape.

“It was a big deal when the cape came onto set for the first time because it’s its own character,” Seyfried explains. “It’s so iconic. It’s the most iconic piece of the story. Then after a while it wasn’t such a big deal; I just got sick of it because it was so heavy.”

Another taxing challenge of her job, she jokes, was having to kiss a bevy of young actors auditioning to play opposite her.

“15,000 men line up!” she laughs, “Literally, they just came in one by one, I opened my mouth, we made out,” she deadpans.

Nice work if you can get it.



Red Riding Hood releases in theaters March 11.