Opening UpBecoming a Star! Everything Camila Cabello Has Said About Making Her Acting Debut in ‘Cinderella’

Overcoming Mental Health

“I don’t think I know how to write in any way that isn’t personal to me,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in December 2021, as part of their Songwriter Roundtable. “When I was working on ‘Million to One’ for Cinderella, to be totally honest, I was going through a really hard time with my mental health.”

Camila added, “It was just a period of a lot of anxiety and sadness for me, and that song had me feeling like, ‘I can overcome this. I know that I can make my life better.’ I feel like I channeled my personal journey into the one of the character. The character was super confident — everybody was telling her no, but she knew.”

A Latina Princess

“We’ve never seen that representation before. … It’s just an honor,” Camila told Variety in September 2021. “The first couple of weeks were really scary because it was all so new to me and I didn’t want to mess it up.”

Loving the Character

“I was really inspired by the character and really inspired by the film,” Camila told Entertainment Tonight in August 2021. “And I feel like it just really turned around the kind of Cinderella that’s patiently sitting in the room and waiting for the prince and sad and scared. Obviously, this character has moments of doubt and sadness too, but I think that it’s much more rounded and she’s also angry at this world and this society that’s not really letting her be, like, a whole person. She is just following her instincts on changing that for herself, and I just think that’s really brave, and we should all be as brave as Cinderella.”

Bonding With the Cast

According to an August 2021 interview with Bustle, Camila became close to her castmates!

“I don’t want it to be just me alone on stage or in a video,” she said of the film. “I just want it to be like that collective joy where I’m not alone.”

Working With Billy

“I was so intimidated by [Billy] because I was like, ‘You’re so talented, you have such a big soul, a big energy about you,’” the singer gushed in the same Bustle article. “I told him that. And he was so vulnerable, so sweet and just a very real person. By the end of it, we really connected. He was like, ‘I want to be your [Fab G] in real life.’”

Playing the Role

“It was one of the most fun experiences of my life,” the “Havana” musician told The Hollywood Reporter in August 2021. “Growing up I was always a huge princess fan. I love that this version is funny and empowered.”

Her Version of the Character

“It is a completely new telling of the story. I feel like other fairytales have values that are more antiquated and don’t reflect women accurately,” Camila explained while chatting with Vogue in August 2021. “In this Cinderella, she has dreams and ambitions, and she wants to save herself, not have a prince or anybody else save her.”

Living the Dream

“It was one of those things that felt like God handcrafted it for me and was, like, ‘Here you go.’” Camila told Variety in August 2019 about nabbing the role. “I just couldn’t say no. It’shonestly a dream for me. And also a little bit terrifying.”

Overcoming Her Fear

“For my first acting classes, I was, like, ‘What the f–k am I doing here? This is so scary.’ But my acting coach, Anthony Meindl, taught me it’s all about the act of surrender and ‘the art of listening,’ as opposed to being in your head,” she recalled in the same Variety interview. “That’s the only technique he has for acting, as simple as it is.”