When it comes to screenplays for films where they need to showcase an intelligent and relatable female lead, Linda Woolverton is the best in the business. She cracked the character of Belle in Beauty and the Beast, which Disney had been struggling with for years until Woolverton - the first ever woman to write an animated feature for the studio - was hired to revise the script. She turned the idea of the stereotypical princess on its head, transforming Belle into a bookworm who does not dream to settle down, but to travel beyond her small town. In recent years, she has written for both the Maleficent and Alice in Wonderland live-action franchises. In a similar fashion to Belle, she has updated the classic one-note characters of the "wicked" Maleficent and "innocent overly-trusting" Alice into interesting realistic depictions of women. She is careful to make them more than just female versions of male superheroes, as executives often do for action-oriented films to appear more feminist. As seen in her interview with Dujour, her characters and their conflicts - such as Maleficent, who does something rash as a result of being betrayed by a man she loved - are deeply connected to womanhood and and complexity of human nature. Their personalities and will-power are strong enough to be able to carry their own Blockbuster without being reliant on other characters. 

Maleficent isn’t the most obvious choice for a character-based film. What drew you to her?

"She’s so delightful and is really the center of the original movie; she’s the most interesting character in it! I thought it would be a fun challenge to turn a villain into a protagonist—I was intrigued by that process."

How do you do that? She’s not exactly likeable.

"I had to find a way in, and I didn’t know if there was one. Was it possible to find a rationale for her to curse a baby? I just didn’t know. It had to be huge, whatever happened to her, but how would we get the audience on board with that? I couldn’t really do anything else until I figured that out."

What’s it like to update an iconic villain? This is someone who’s been scaring kids for decades. 

"It’s a big challenge. The world has changed in the 50 years since the original movie, and hopefully we’re more open to all aspects of womankind, whether they’re good or evil. She’s kind of both. I love the idea of depicting all aspects of her, including the dark and wicked parts, like making a bad mistake in a moment of anger—which we’ve all done—and saying something we can never take back. It’s a much more modern take."