As actor James Marsden preened and posed, in character, he figured he had two choices.
"I thought, as I'm standing on top of the bus in Times Square, 'When am I ever going to get to do this again?' So, instead of being mortified because people are looking at you wearing tights and saying, 'That's Cyclops,' you might as well enjoy it, because you're framed by this beautiful landmark and you're doing an iconic Disney movie."
One that his 6-year-old son and, eventually, his 2-year-old daughter could see. Marsden, who played Cyclops in the "X-Men" trilogy, a dance-show host in "Hairspray" and Lois Lane's fiance in "Superman Returns," is Prince Edward in "Enchanted," opening today.
His son accompanied him to some of the wardrobe fittings and was especially thrilled by the costume's sword, although Marsden jokes, "Ultimately, I'm Dad; he's over me. He likes the chipmunk," an animated scene-stealer named Pip.
Marsden's cartoon character follows his princess bride (Amy Adams) into the real world of Manhattan, and they definitely aren't in the kingdom of Andalasia anymore.
They filmed in Times Square as regular folks wandered by, and the red-haired Adams tried to find inspiration in the stares and second takes at Giselle, the woman in the wedding dress who emerges from a manhole.
"I'm coming into a real foreign place and the people are looking at me with some amount of amusement or shock or disdain, so I just used whatever reaction was there as inspiration," she said. "People were relatively respectful although there was the odd person, usually male, who would say something or invite me to be their princess, to which my answer was always no."
Adams spends part of the movie in a wet wedding gown and said in a phone interview from Los Angeles, "I have to tell you, only women really comment on how heavy it looked. ... I was definitely ready to be done with the dress. I wore it the first day and the last day," and many days in between. "It often won whatever arguments we got in," she added, with a laugh.
Win or lose, "Enchanted" required her to put on a perpetually happy face. In that sense, Giselle shared some qualities with the Southerner who earned Adams a 2005 Oscar nomination for the indie hit "Junebug."
"I really enjoy playing optimistic, upbeat people. They're very infectious to my own personality and remind me of simpler times and just fun. Yeah, I'm human and there were days when I wasn't in the mood to be a cheerful princess, but you just dive in and, by the end, it really does teach you how a positive attitude can change your day."
Adams and Marsden had unwittingly spent years preparing for the starring roles.
"I wish I could say I sat and studied Disney films, but they were actually already in my mind in a very real way," said Adams, who had watched the classics on videotape, television's "Wonderful World of Disney" or in theaters.
Marsden, meanwhile, said if there's a movie playing in his house, it's likely to be "Toy Story" or "Cinderella" or "Monsters Inc.," so he had a firm foundation when it came to his royal.
"If you go back to the classics, he's more Prince Phillip from 'Sleeping Beauty' than he is the princes from 'Snow White' and 'Cinderella,' because I think it was the first prince who was allowed to have a personality and actually slay the dragon and all of that," Marsden said.
Still, Prince Edward has a touch of Gaston from "Beauty and the Beast," a bit of Buzz Lightyear, a pinch of "The Princess Bride" and a healthy ego that comes from an innocent place.
In terms of Marsden's ego, he had to act against a chipmunk who wasn't there (yet) and perform songs by Academy Award and Broadway favorites Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz.
"My God, I'm so lucky, I'm doing this movie and it's Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz -- 'Pocahontas,' 'Little Mermaid,' 'Beauty and the Beast.' To be singing those songs, mark another thing off my career objective list," said Marsden, who put his pipes to excellent use in "Hairspray" and "Ally McBeal."
As for the sidekick called Pip, Marsden says, "Most of the time, I was acting to nothing. Some of the times, there was a chipmunk on the end of a stick, a stuffed one, or a little piece of tape I had to look to, a mark where the chipmunk would be rendered."
Adams also shared face time with the invisible chipmunk and a menagerie that included real pigeons trained to fly on command and rats taught to sit and scamper. "I worked mostly with the sitting rats, they were well-behaved, so it wasn't that bad. ... The cockroaches, I was really happy those were animated."
For the actress, "Enchanted" marked a return to her roots. "I had auditioned for some Broadway shows while I was out here [in L.A.] working on my film career. I came from musical theater, so that was always sort of my first love."
She, too, was bowled over by the participation of Menken and CMU graduate Schwartz. "They did such a wonderful job with the music and really were so lovely and gracious with me. They really, actually, helped me find my voice as a singer, in a way I had never done before."
She channeled her inner Kristin Chenoweth while Marsden listened to Nelson Eddy and Mario Lanza to achieve the operetta style the filmmakers desired. They wanted to mimic the singing from "Snow White," "Cinderella" and "Sleeping Beauty."
"Enchanted" explores what might happen if those classic characters were suddenly transported to the present day, where life isn't so easy and innocent.
"Even in this modern-day, fast-paced, more cynical world, happily ever after and your personal true love can be found," Marsden says of the movie's message. "It might not be the guy on the white horse or the princess at the top of the tower, it will be your version of your prince or your version of your princess.
"Those romantic notions of finding true love are not lost, they're not gone. ... It might come unexpectedly and it might be different than what you'd imagined."
And sometimes, it might involve a man in tights atop a bus in Times Square.
First Published: November 21, 2007, 10:00 a.m.
