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Mandy Moore & Zachary Levi Get 'Tangled' -- Exclusive Interview!

Mandy Moore & Zachary Levi Get 'Tangled' -- Exclusive Interview!

Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi meet up at a Disney Store on Friday (November 19) in NYC.

The two Tangled co-stars hosted a reading session for a group of kids but also took time to chat with JustJared.com about their animated movie!

Mandy, 26, and Zach, 30, dished on “freaking out” during the audition process, recording a duet together, and some hidden Easter eggs in the film.

Click inside for Just Jared‘s exclusive interview with Mandy and Zach


JustJared.com’s Exclusive Mandy Moore & Zach Levi Interview

JJ: How did both of you get involved with this project?
MM: I heard that they were making a movie about the story Rapunzel and that it was going to be a musical and I was like, “Oh my gosh, it’s been so long since Disney’s made that kind of film”. I was immediately so excited and scared to audition ’cause I thought “What are the chances that this would work out in my favor?”
ZL: I [also] heard about this from my agent and then freaked out. I mean, I don’t know, I think everyone in our generation we grew up with these movies and loved them. You’re hard pressed to find any kid who didn’t like at least one of them on some level like Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, or The Little Mermaid, or Mulan, or Pocahontas. I really didn’t think I had a shot at it, but I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. I fought.

JJ: Did you want to be a prince growing up?
ZL: I don’t know if I wanted to be a prince so much as one of the great characters as they have. I mean traditionally the princes have been kind of…
MM: Boring?
ZL: Bland, yeah. I mean very chivalrous and all that, but foot notes in the whole story of it all didn’t really add much.
MM: It’s always about the princess. And that’s what I like about [Tangled] is that it’s sort of this shared, collective journey that they go on so it’s not the archetypical story with the prince and the princess. Rapunzel is this damsel in distress and she’s waiting to be rescued, the prince will climb up the tower, and you know there’s a little bit more involved.

JJ: What’s your favorite song from the movie?
MM: I actually love the duet we get to sing.
ZL The duet’s great, but the snugly duckling… yeah.
MM: I love “Mother Knows Best” as well because I think Donna Murphy is unbelievable, unreal.

JJ: What was your favorite part about recording? Were you guys ever in the studio together ever?
MM: Just for the duet.
ZL: Yeah the duet, but not for the dialogue. Which is odd.
MM: It was odd! I thought at some point they would let us all kind of get in the same room, but I would say recording the duet was the most amazing part because we had a 70-piece orchestra. It was a fun stage.
ZL: There was a harp, there was a HARP!

JJ: Were there any hidden Easter eggs that you can remember for the film?
MM: Yes, I was asking. There’s something when Rapunzel and Flynn when they’re in the bookshop like when they go into town there’s Pinocchio in the shop, like hidden things you mean? Somebody was telling me about this!
ZL: Well the one Easter egg that stands out to me that I don’t know if a lot of people will get, but I love it. There’s a goat in the snugly duckling that you just kind of see in his eyes all crazy — just for a second he goes “Mehh (like a goat)”, like that — and it’s the same goat that is on Big Thunder Mountain the ride. When you’re going down one of the last turn, hill things, there’s a goat that’s chewing on dynamite. I’m pretty positive it’s an homage to that goat, I’m almost positive.
MM: There’s something from “Bolt” that they threw in too. I’m like a nerd, I was asking about it and I was like, “tell me, tell me, tell me!” I want to see the hidden little Mickey’s!

JJ: Mandy, can you talk more about your character in the upcoming movie Love, Wedding, and Marriage? And how was it working with Kellan Lutz and Jessica Szohr?
MM: I play a marriage counselor whose parents split up right at the beginning at the film and so I’m frantically doing everything I can to get them back together. Kellan and Jessica were great, it was a lot of fun to work with them. Kellan has his shirt off for most of the movie, which I found pretty funny, but nobody seemed to complain about that. It’s a really cute movie and I love New Orleans, it’s like my favorite city so it was a blast to shoot there.

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Tangled is out in theaters NOW. It helped Walt Disney Animation Studios score its biggest opening this past weekend, raking in $49 million. Over the five-day Thanksgiving Day weekend, it earned a massive $69 million.

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Photos: Justin Campbell
Posted to: Exclusive, Jared Eng, Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi