16 Fascinating Things You Didn’t Know About Maleficent

Disney’s baddest broad has an incredible past.

 Sam Stryker

We first saw Maleficent onscreen in Disney’s 1959 adaptation of the Sleeping Beauty fairytale.

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1. Eleanor Audley, the actress who voiced the animated Maleficent also voiced Lady Tremaine (aka the Evil Stepmother) in Cinderella and Madame Leota in Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion attraction.

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2. The name “Maleficent” is a derivative of the Latin word maleficentia, meaning “evil-doing.”

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3. Audley acted out her scenes in costume, which inspired the final design for her character.

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4. The flame-like detailing of Maleficent’s robes were based off of a medieval Czech illustration legendary Disney illustrator Marc Davis came across in his household collection of art.

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5. Maleficent’s collar was designed to have a “bat-like” appearance.

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6. And unsurprisingly, her horns were based right off the devil “so she would frighten everybody half to death.”

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But with a live-action version of Sleeping Beauty told from Maleficent’s perspective set to be released, we haven’t seen the last of the Mistress of All Evil…

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7. Tim Burton was originally in the running to direct the live-action Maleficent.

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8. Angelina Jolie had a HUGE role in developing Maleficent’s on-screen look for the live-action movie. Her horns were made by artisans who specialize in fetishware.

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9. Jolie wore several different versions of the horns throughout the movie because she could have broken her neck with the heaviest version of the horns.

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10. One version of the horns was magnetic and could pop off Jolie’s head.

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11. Lady Gaga’s look in her music video for “Born This Way” inspired the prosthetic cheekbones Jolie wore for the film.

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12. And the contacts she wore while filming were based off of goat eyes, which have horizontal pupils.

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13. Jolie developed her voice for the role while giving her children a bath.

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14. Jolie’s daughter Vivienne plays a younger version of Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) in the movie because she was not afraid of her mother’s scary look in costume.

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15. And two of her other children, Pax and Zahara, have cameos in the christening scene as young royalty.

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16. Jolie reportedly hand-selected pop songstress Lana Del Rey to cover “Once Upon A Dream” for the new film.

Consider yourselves educated, you fools!

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