On Thursday (November 19), Netflix released the highly anticipated third installment of the Princess Switch series. The Princess Switch: Romancing The Star sees Vanessa Hudgens once again take up the mantle of portraying three different characters that just so happen to look exactly alike.
In this latest outing, Margaret and Stacy are forced to turn to Fiona, Margaret's audacious cousin and fellow lookalike, for help after a priceless Christmas relic is stolen from the palace. Along with Fiona's ex, the three lookalikes team up to steal back the stolen relic before it's too late.
Ahead of Romancing The Star's release, iHeartRadio sat down with Princess Switch director Mike Rohl to chat about the beloved series. From creating fictional places like Belgravia and Montenaro to the technical side of filming Hudgens in three different roles, Rohl talked about it all. He even teased a "few surprises" in the film, as well as the future of this must-watch Christmas series.
Though set in fictional locations like Belgravia and Montenaro, the movie was filmed in Scotland. How do you turn a real-world place into your fictional setting?
One of the main reasons that we went to Scotland is because we knew that, right off the bat, there were a lot of period buildings. Obviously, it has a lot of history, and being a princess movie, it was the perfect place to go to. We had our pick of quite a few places. Although, you know, there were some restrictions because of COVID and everything like that. We had to be a little selective. It wasn't that tough. We just found some nice places and then you add the Christmas magic and we had the snow and it starts to add up. Next thing you know, we're in a princess land.
Besides location scouting, how did COVID-19 restrictions affect filming?
It was quite a bit different than normal, but we managed. You know, when it came to working with big crowds and stuff like that, we had to kind of put technology on our side to make the crowds look bigger. I was very proud of the help we got with COVID. We had a whole department just dedicated to our safety and to make sure we were tested and that everybody that worked on the set or either came and left from the set were all tested and stuff like that. So it was a very secure work environment. And, you know, after that got laid out, it just became normal. You know, we just did what we always do.
Obviously, Vanessa Hudgens is the star of the film three times over, but how was it collaborating with her as a producer?
It was actually quite helpful because she was invested in the movie. Outside of being the lead actress, she cared a lot about the success of the movie. And so she was my direct, main creative partner because it took a lot of tactics, not just from the artistic side, but just the logistics side as well. Organizing everything. And she really helped out quite a bit with that. So it was a pretty smooth operation.
Based on which of the three look-a-likes she's portraying, how does that affect the behind-the-scenes of the movie? Do you have to change anything around behind the camera?
Yeah. Let's just say we're doing a scene and there's three of them, three of the characters in it, you know, normally what would happen is that everybody comes in and they each represent their character. We block out the scene. In other words, we rehearse it. And then we figure out where everybody's going to go. In the case of Princess Switch three, or all of them, actually, you know, we would have to kind of do that blocking three times because I wanted to give Vanessa a chance to get herself in the skin of each character during the blocking. And then after that was all finished off, we made an agreement that anytime we did any of the tripling or doubling, it usually went on, I think I got the order, right—we usually went Margaret then Stacy. And then, because she's got all the makeup and all the hair and all the fights and stuff like that, Fiona was last.
So we would say, okay, now you're doing Margaret. And then we had a small group of other actors that also took part in the blockings. They would provide all the off-camera stuff and try to, you know, as close as they could mimic what Vanessa had done earlier in the rehearsals with all the other characters. By our third movie, we had that down just like clockwork. We've had the same off-camera actors who were all great actors in their own. It just clicked along really nicely. We actually found a good rhythm.
Apart from all those technical aspects, how do you flesh out these three distinct characters on screen?
The thing about Vanessa is she's so professional and she's so prepared that she knew that she wanted to create three distinct characters. Her advantage was that she'd already done two of them—Stacy and Margaret—as far as how she would portray them. What made it different this time is that, emotionally, she had to go to some unique places as Fiona. We ended up finding a lot more about Fiona's life story and her emotional arcs. She worked quite a bit on that, but like a normal actor/director relationship, we get into the nitty-gritty and talk about tactics and all that kind of stuff as we go.
In addition to fleshing out Fiona's character this time around, you're bringing in a third love interest now. Because you have three different actors playing against one actress as three different characters, how do you go about casting those roles? Do you ever worry that one of them is going to have more chemistry or come across as a more dynamic pairing with Vanessa?
I just treated each character as their own thing. It didn't really occur to me that one couple might get more upstaged because they're so uniquely special, you know? The challenge in this one was just to get a new layer, a new dynamic that we haven't seen in the other two. By making Remy, who plays Peter, a bit of a man of mystery and a little bit miss mischievous and that his background is different than the others. Fiona is different than others, too, which is automatically going to create a whole new dynamic that I think there really shouldn't be a comparison as far as chemistry. Everybody that works with Vanessa just clicks on and does their best work. So, that's a bonus. I risked that because you've got to get some good stuff.
There's going to be a little bit of a heist plot going on in this one. What made you guys want to go in that direction?
Well, we knew that being movie number three, we wanted to surprise the audience and try to give it a little bit more of a twist. We wanted to find out a lot more about who Fiona was, too. We thought there was a lot of potential there because she was sort of the bad guy and she was kind of an opportunist in the previous film. When we sat down and we talked, we wondered: how does Fiona grow up in a similar situation as Margaret and turn out the way she turned out? Why does she jet-set around the world? How did she end up with these strange and weird and lovely friends? We knew that that was probably a good thread to follow. One thing led to another and the idea of her hanging out with kind of a shady character or shady people from time to time, kind of motivated us to go in that direction.
Were you inspired by any other movies in that vein— any heist or adventure movies that you pulled from?
The Ocean's Eleven series, which is fantastic and was always sort of floating in the back of my mind. When Robin Bernheim wrote the script, she's a fan of a movie with Sean Connery called The Entrapment, which we both love, so we thought there were some nice influences there. We took those influences and we melded them in with what we already had then moved in that cool direction, which was fantastic. Shooting all that stuff, the party, and the heist itself, was my favorite part of shooting the movie. It was so, so much fun.
After doing the first two Princess Switch movies, did you feel like you had figured out what the secret sauce is for making these movies a Christmas season must-watch?
She even has a name, Vanessa Hudgens, all the way, man, Vanessa Hudgens. She is so responsible for the success of these movies just by the characters she brings out and just the way she does it. She's so, so, so fantastic. But also, you know, by the time we came to number three, we had a family that sort of got put together with all these. Cause I brought all the same collaborators back on the third movie, because we've had a lot of fun, a lot of success. So by the third movie, we all had it down as far as the technical side. So we got to just play.
We wanted to go in a direction that was completely unexpected, but at the same time, you know, create a strong emotional component to the movie. Cause we get to find out why Fiona is the way she is. We get to find out why she hasn't been in a relationship. We get to find out why Peter, who she's known since she was a kid and who's madly in love with Fiona, why that never worked out. We get to find out all this information at the same time as we're on the run with this jewel from the Vatican, being chased by the bad guys. It's awesome.
Do you have a favorite of the three lookalikes? Which one is the most fun to play around with while you're filming?
I have to say Fiona's pretty cool. She's so effervescent. When Vanessa does Fiona, lots of unexpected things happen because she's more in that sort of improv mind. It's fun to watch her and see what she does. The other two obviously have their own pluses, too. I mean, the sophistication and the smoothness of Margaret and the plucky down to Earth, straight-up, Chicago, Stacey? Each one's so colorful on their own, but I suppose I got a little bit of a crush on Fiona.
Will fans be seeing any other lookalikes popping up in Romancing the Star?
Any other lookalikes? Well, there are a few surprises. I'm not going to say what it is, but if you're a fan of this universe, there's a little surprise in the movie. I think people will see it right away and hopefully, they will be surprised and have a great time.
Do you have any plans to keep the series going after number three?
It's a mystery. It's popular. Everybody's having a great time. So, you never know. If the fans want more. Robin Bernheim, who's kind of our Oracle for the story, I'm sure has a brain full of ideas. So who knows?
Rohl is a prolific award-winning Director and Producer. His latest and most rewarding achievement is the hit Netflix movie franchise The Princess Switch and, in particular, The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star. In addition to The Princess Switch series, Rohl helms feature films, movies of the week, mini-series and TV episodic in a wide variety of genres, including Freeform’s Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments; The Hallmark Channel’s Chesapeake Shores and When Calls the Heart; The CW’s Supernatural, Smallville, Beauty and the Beast and Reign; SyFy’s Eureka, Aftermath, Primeval New World, Helix and Continuum; Fox’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles; CBS’ Close to Home; ABC’s Defying Gravity; USA Network’s The Dead Zone; CBC’s Arctic Air and Strange Empire and many more.