Disney’s ‘Tangled’ Live-Action Cast Revealed — Rapunzel and Flynn Announced
Having evidently exhausted its well of Renaissance and pre-Renaissance classics (“The Lion King,” “Snow White,” etc.) over the past decade, Disney now keeps its live-action-remake train going by pilfering from its slate of beloved films from earlier in this century. Last year, there was “Lilo & Stitch;” now, a remake of 2010’s “Tangled” is well underway. To bring this tale of a trapped princess with impossibly flowing tresses to life, Disney has started by casting two established young actors in the roles of its main heroes.
Raven Is Paired with a Disney Veteran
In the role of main protagonist Rapunzel – the princess with that very long, easily tangled hair – Disney has cast Teagan Croft, a 21-year-old Australian actor who has had a supporting role in the 2016 film “The Osiris Child: Science Fiction Volume One” and a recurring part on the long-running Australian sitcom “Home and Away.” She is even better known internationally for her starring role in the DC Universe/HBO Max superhero series “Titans” (2018-23), on which she played the half-demon, half-human DC character Rachel Roth, a.k.a. Raven.
The role of Flynn Rider, the thief who becomes Rapunzel’s savior and love interest, will be played by Milo Manheim, a 24-year-old American performer whose most prominent previous leading role was on the Disney Channel’s 2018 made-for-TV musical “Zombies.” This movie was a Disneyfied take on the titular monsters, and Manheim portrayed a zombie who aspires to become a football player and falls in love with a human cheerleader. Flynn Rider may be a subversive version of Prince Charming, but it’ll be very difficult for “Tangled” to match that love story in terms of sheer unconventionality.
Will It Be Their Breakout Role?
But then, Disney has never been trying to reinvent the wheel with all these live-action remakes. It keeps making these movies because they deliver at the box office. Sure, “Snow White” was a crushing failure last March, but that movie had the specific misfortune of being plagued by controversy for years leading up to its release. “Lilo & Stitch” absolutely cleaned house during the summer with a return of over a billion dollars, indicating that the debacle of its predecessor was an anomaly more than anything else. If “Tangled” is similarly successful, then it may catapult Croft and Manheim into stardom.
What About the Rest of the Cast?
Unanswered as yet is the question of who will portray the third iconic character in “Tangled”: the evil Mother Gothel, who poses as Rapunzel’s mother in order to keep her captive and exploit the magical properties of the princess’s golden locks. At one time, Scarlet Johansson was in consideration for this role, but this is no longer the case because of her scheduling conflicts with other films. On Jan. 8, Deadline reported that Kathryn Hahn (“Bad Moms,” “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”) was in talks for the part.
Considering Disney’s commitment to racially progressive casting choices with several previous live-action remakes, those in charge of the new “Tangled” may want to take into account certain criticisms of the original film’s alleged problematic racial coding when determining how to depict Mother Gothel alongside Rapunzel (whose actor is blond, just as the animated character is).
Speaking of which, it will be interesting to learn how Rapunzel’s iconic hair, which is long enough to be used as a rope to scale a tower or to tie up an intruder without her needing to stand within several yards of him, will be depicted in live action. It may be too much to ask for Disney to use real animals for Pascal and Maximus, the chameleon and horse (respectively) that serve as comic sidekicks for Rapunzel and Flynn. Disney’s spate of remakes has become famous (even notorious) for their heavy use of CGI, and while the two aforementioned animals don’t talk, they’re probably just anthropomorphic enough to rule out flesh-and-blood creatures from their depiction.
No release date has yet been set for Disney’s live-action “Tangled,” so it may be a while yet before we learn the answers to any of these questions.
