Joslyn Davis sat down with Alex Pettyfer and Vanessa Hudgens to talk about their new film Beastly, their on-screen chemistry, having to give speeches in front of a crowd and the make-up process for the film

Check out a behind-the-scenes look at Beastly, Alex’s new movie where he plays Kyle, a popular guy who gets taught a lesson in true and real beauty.

Source: Just Jared, Jr.

In case the rumored roles in those three highly anticipated film versions of young adult book series “The Mortal Instruments,” “The Hunger Games” and “The Seventh Son” don’t work out for Alex Pettyfer, he’s got a future in musicals. Sort of.

During my most recent chat with Alex and his “Beastly” co-star Vanessa Hudgens, I was not only offered the role of making his future career decisions for him, but enjoyed a brief serenade of a most unlikely song: “Breaking Free” from Vanessa’s “High School Musical.”

Now, how exactly did this come about during a conversation about their modern take on “Beauty and the Beast?” Because I asked Alex and Vanessa if, in the spirit of Disney’s most famous and musical version, they felt the need to burst into song on the set of their film.

“We had a little sing song,” Alex revealed, before unexpectedly belting out a few bars of the “HSM” classic.

“I used to sing, ‘We’re soaring, flying’” he sang, which made Vanessa collapse into giggles. “And yeah, I didn’t get any reaction [from Vanessa],” he said, sounding dejected.

I then pointed out the fact that his song choice probably wasn’t the most original, that Vanessa has very likely heard that song a few too many times. Anyway, getting back to Alex’s surprise knowledge of the Disney musical, I asked him if he’s a big fan of the material.

“Am I? Pfft. [I'm the] biggest geek,” he confessed. “It’s all over my wall. Gotta love the Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens and ‘High School Musical 3,’ he said, emphasizing the third film and inexplicably leaving out “High School Musical” and “High School Musical 2.”

I then asked Vanessa if Alex performed any of the film’s signature choreography, in addition to “Breaking Free.”

“No. He sang,” she said. “It was enough. [He] broke out into “Soaring [sic].” It was good.”

I’m not so sure about that, but hey, I’ll take an Alex serenade any day.

Source: Hollywood Crush

LOS ANGELES—Ask director and writer Daniel Barnz about Beastly, his teen take on Beauty and the Beast that opens Friday, and his logic makes absolute sense: “It’s a story that’s obviously about looks, and where else are you more obsessed with looks than in high school?”

Simple enough. But for Alex Pettyfer, who plays a gorgeous-but-cruel teen transformed by sorcery, bearing the brunt of his director’s metaphor meant five-and-a-half hours in makeup every day to be altered with fake scars, phony tattoos and even “implanted” shards of mirror.

What kept him from going insane sitting in the chair? The handsome British actor laughed: “I think it’s (listening to) The Police and watching movies.”

Pettyfer, it turns out, had a mistaken idea of how long the process was going to take: “I think I had this image in my mind that it was just one of those things where you’re like that, and it takes 30 seconds — not the case. So I guess I had a different view of what it was going to be, but I’m very proud of how it turned out.”

Co-starring opposite Pettyfer is High School Musical veteran Vanessa Hudgens, meeting the press in a Top Shop suit and Badgley Mischka top, who had no qualms about revamping a classic part for a new century: “I think a damsel in distress, no matter how you look at it, is a female in need. My character Lindy, in the beginning, thinks it’s a lot easier to go through life under the radar, to lay back rather than stand out.”

“It’s, I feel, a little sad, because I feel like women are a strong breed and we should stand up. It’s really beautiful, because I feel like through love, she finds herself and learns to love herself — which allows her to love someone else.”

Pettyfer, for his part, appreciated the film’s spin on the familiar story: “I was also attracted to that classic tale of Beauty and the Beast. I’d never seen it told through the male’s perspective.”

But Barnz knew that the film would require more inventions to provide a fresh retelling: “When I first went in to talk to the studio about the film, they asked me, ‘What’s the beast going to look like?’”

“I said, ‘I don’t know what the beast is going to look like yet, but I will tell you there will be no fur.’ In my mind, I had those terrible images of An American Werewolf in London and somebody writhing on the floor and fur popping out.

“I thought, ‘That’s not going to fly with audiences today.’ Why does it have to be animalistic? Why can’t it be something else? The idea was always to create somebody who has a bit of a sexy-beast quality. I wanted the audience to have the same experience that Lindy does — Vanessa Hudgens’ character — which is initial shock and horror, but then you find a strange beauty in it.”

Pettyfer is grateful that the film didn’t go with the traditional furry, werewolf-like vision of the beast. “I’m glad we went more Edward Scissorhands than we did Twilight,” he says.

Barnz praised Pettyfer for having the combination of charisma and vulnerability needed to make all parts of the character’s journey work. “When I first met him, he has some of this magnetic charismatic thing about him. Then, when you sit down with him, he has an emotional complexity to him, which was exciting for me as a director, because it is a demanding role. He begins the film (as) this incredibly magnetic, charismatic jerk. He has to sell himself in that way, but you have to see that there’s a little bit of vulnerability — and he gets transformed and miserable and moody and incredibly unhappy.”

Pettyfer and Hudgens are both charismatic, handsome young people, but — considering Beastly’s focus on noticing that true beauty is more than just looks — do they have any inner beauty tips to offer? Hudgens, poise showing, thinks before she speaks: “To stay present, I feel. A lot of people get really caught up in the past or really caught up in the future, and don’t enjoy the journey. One thing I’m truly trying to live by is to stay present and do the best that I can.”

And does Pettyfer have any ideas on how to best woo a young lady? “Buy her chocolate, go for a meal, watch a movie.” And not, as his character does in Beastly, buy her Bulgari diamonds? Pettyfer laughed: “No. Oh, wow, I wish. If I had that money, then I would be good. I’d fund my own movies.”

Source: The Star

Collider has cut together five movie clips from Beastly. Enjoy!