The Princess Diaries Cast and Crew Look Back on the Film’s 25-Year Legacy—and Ahead to the 3rd Film

To crown The Princess Diaries as a standout film in 2001 would be a tremendous understatement. In the 25 years since its release, the timeless coming-of-age story—part Pygmalion, part Cinderella, and all heart—has shaped a generation and continues to inspire some of the greatest actors and filmmakers today.

Based on Meg Cabot’s diary-style novels that span 20 books and counting, The Princess Diaries centers on awkward teen Amelia “Mia” Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway), who learns that she is secretly a princess. Her grandmother, Queen Clarisse (Julie Andrews), sets out to help mold Mia into the next royal leader of the fictional country of Genovia. Mia’s best friends, siblings Lilly (Heather Matarazzo) and Michael (Robert Schwartzman), both have mixed feelings about her changing social status, while Mia’s mother, Helen (Caroline Goodall), is uncertain whether or not Mia should claim her royal role.

Gina Wendkos wrote the script for the original film, and legendary late auteur Garry Marshall directed the Walt Disney feature that delivered iconic lines still quoted 25 years later. (“Me, a princess? Shut up!”) After The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement landed in theaters in 2004, fans and stars alike have spent decades awaiting confirmation that a long-rumored third film has been officially greenlit by Disney. An attempt at the third installment was first shelved after Marshall’s death in 2016, but eight years later, Disney announced that writer-director Adele Lim would helm The Princess Diaries 3.

Lim said that she was a “die-hard fan of the original” film and credited the franchise for having “core tenets of female power, joy, and mentorship,” via Variety. While there have been various iterations of the script for Lim’s feature over the years, lead star and producer Hathaway recently teased on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy in July 2026 that it had a “story breakthrough.” She added, “I think we are moving in the right direction.”

Hathaway further looked back on the cultural impact of The Princess Diaries with Entertainment Tonight during its anniversary banner year, saying, “I was 17 years old when I made that movie. It was amazing and one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had, but the reason that it’s become what it has is not because of me—it’s because of everybody else. It’s because of all the little girls who took it into their hearts and then never let it go and grew up with it, and now those little girls have lives. Some of them have families and they show it to their own kids, and it’s amazing to be a part of a legacy like that.”

The Princess Diaries 3 director Lim was one of those little girls that Hathaway is referencing. “When I pitched for this movie, I actually used a picture of myself,” Lim tells ELLE. “I grew up in Malaysia. I’m Chinese. I have nothing in common with Mia Thermopolis. But when you look at a picture of me at that age, I’m like, ‘I am Mia Thermopolis.’”

Lim added, “That is what speaks to the timelessness of it: Every girl has that moment in her where she is that Mia Thermopolis and needs that larger-than-life Julie Andrews, cosmic energy fairy godmother to pull our potential out of us. [Author] Meg Cabot did such a great job, speaking to that inner, eternal young woman in all of us. That is what you want your life to be.”

While Lim stayed tight-lipped about the storyline, she did confirm that The Princess Diaries 3 is set within the expansive franchise universe surrounding the novel character Olivia Harrison, the secret half-sister of Mia Thermopolis (her parents are the deceased Prince Philippe Renaldo and charter pilot Elizabeth Harrison). Per the novels in the spinoff series From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess, Olivia discovers that she is a princess after Queen Mia arrives at her New Jersey middle school in a limo. Lim, however, clarifies that the plot will be modified for the screen: “I will say with a caveat that we are not following exactly how she is depicted in Meg’s books, but it is going to be our own play on it,” Lim says of focusing on the next generation of the Renaldo royals. “It felt like that was the natural evolution for the franchise.”

Hathaway is on board as a producer, along with franchise steward and original producer Debra Martin Chase. While Hathaway is the only original Princess Diaries cast member who has been publicly confirmed to return for the third film, novelist Cabot has teased that Royal Engagement alum Chris Pine will be back as Nicolas Devereux (Lim told ELLE that Pine’s character is “iconic”).

Below, ELLE speaks with the original cast and crew of The Princess Diaries about their memories from the legendary Garry Marshall film, how Mia’s reign lives on 25 years later, and their own hopes for the third film.

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How did the Princess Diaries film come to be? 

Debra Martin Chase, producer and first Black filmmaker to ever have a studio deal: Whitney [Houston] and I executive produced Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, which was a big success. An agent at William Morris gave me the script for Princess Diaries—he thought I might be interested because of Cinderella. The script had been turned down by a number of publishers for being too soft. I loved it—it was kind of a real-life Cinderella story. From the beginning, screenwriter Gina Wendkos and I dreamed of getting Julie Andrews to play Clarisse and Garry Marshall to direct. They were our dream team.

Mario Iscovich, longtime Garry Marshall producer: Garry and I worked on Runaway Bride, and after that, there was a changeover at Disney: Nina Jacobson [became president of the Walt Disney Motion Picture Group]. She called and said, “We bought a book and we have a script. Will you guys look at it, and if you want to do it, I’ll give it the green light?” I called Garry and he said, “I don’t know. It’s a kids’ movie.” He was really reticent about doing it. And I said, ‘But you could do something special with it. You could bring your charm to it. Why don’t you do it for your granddaughters?’ And then there was a silence on the phone and he said, “Now that might be OK. Tell Nina we’ll do it.” And that’s how Princess Diaries [was] born. It ultimately was Garry’s decision. I was just trying to push it over the edge.

How did you find the perfect Mia in Anne Hathaway, and who else auditioned for the lead?

Marcia Ross, casting director and head of casting for the Walt Disney Motion Picture Group, whose credits include Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You: Scarlett Johansson was on a master list and her availability was checked. I think January Jones would have read, and I have very vivid memories of Emmy Rossum auditioning and even testing for the role. I remember seeing Leighton Meester when she didn’t have an agent yet. Mandy Moore also read for the role of Mia, as did just about every actress in the age range.

But here is the story of Anne: I first met her when she was about 15 or 16. Around the time I got the script for The Princess Diaries, I watched a short-lived TV show [family drama Get Real, which ran from 1999 to 2000 and co-starred Jesse Eisenberg] that had Anne as a series regular. Right away it seemed to me that she had that special quality to be believable as a real girl and then transform into a princess—which was essential to the casting of this role. Anne was coming through LA for another job, and we got her in the room with Garry Marshall. From there we decided to test her and the rest is history. Iscovich: She didn’t have that much experience and I said to Garry, “Well, she’s got a unique charm. She’s kind of special.” And Garry turned to me and he said, “I think she could be a star.” I’ll never forget it. He knew.

Mayne Berke, The Princess Diaries production designer: I remember the Monday morning Garry walked into our weekly production meeting. He announced to the room: “I found her! I only had to look at 400 girls but I found her, and she’s going to be as big as Julia Roberts!” You tell me, was he right?

Patrick Richwood, the actor who played Mia’s neighbor Mr. Robotussin: Garry said that Annie reminded him of Audrey Hepburn: “I can see her being gawky because she really is a teenager but truly she just has this look that’s perfect for the camera.”

What was the rest of the casting process like as you built out the ensemble?

Ross: I really liked Mandy when she read for the role of Mia. You could tell that she had something special and her music career was burgeoning. I love Sandra [Oh], and she came in and auditioned for [Vice Principal Gupta]. We were having a hard time finding the right actor for the role of Michael. We saw everyone, and then Garry came in one day and told us that he’d heard through somebody about “this kid” and could we find him. Robert [Schwartzman] really hadn’t done [much] acting-wise since he was working on his music, but I knew his brother Jason Schwartzman from Rushmore, and we tracked Robert down in San Francisco.

Robert Schwartzman, the actor who played Michael, and founder of independent film studio Utopia: It was really out of nowhere that the movie happened for me. I had done The Virgin Suicides and Garry had apparently liked me in that. I had started a rock ’n’ roll band [Rooney] and I was doing music when I was cast in the film. I was a senior in high school and left school to be in the film, which was very cool. But I didn’t feel cut out for it. I had impostor syndrome on set. Mandy Moore was a big singer. Heather [Matarazzo] was very experienced. I was just thinking, “Am I good enough? Can I keep up with these people?” From my perspective, I just felt new to the world. I grew up around actors and on movie sets [as part of the Coppola family], but it was new for me to actually be in front of the camera in this kind of a role, on this scale of a movie.

Donna Morong, casting director: Heather Matarazzo had been in an indie film I saw at Sundance, Welcome to the Dollhouse. We loved her quirky energy and timing to play Mia’s best friend.

Heather Matarazzo, the actress who played Lilly: It was the first starring role that I had in a major studio film. For my angsty 16- or 17-year-old self, it was all a bit much for me. I was used to working on budgets that were in the $1 million to $2 million range and this was just completely different. I remember that I did a chemistry read with Annie [Hathaway] and Garry had us tap dance. I am rather shy, and doing that kind of stuff was new to me. Garry really set the tone that it was a safe space to play.

Garry Marshall was known for frequently working with the same character actors, editors, cinematographers, and production designers. How did you first become part of the Princess Diaries family?

Richwood: I first met Garry when I was 23. My sister Blair was Garry’s assistant, and I read for a role in a movie that he was doing called Mystery Bitch, which later became Overboard. The role got cut but that was it: I was in. By the time I did The Princess Diaries, I felt like family. Every Garry set was like that.

Hector Elizondo, the actor who played Joe, the Renaldo royal family chauffeur and security guard: Garry and I had known each other since the late ’70s [through being on a pickup basketball team together]. We have a lot in common: New York, sports, the way we view the world.

Schwartzman: I think any director who carries with them a troupe, an ensemble, a list of collaborators that stay with them, that’s very meaningful and says a lot about them. I would say Garry is a very loyal filmmaker, loyal to his crew, his cast, and his collaborators.

The Princess Diaries is a quintessential San Francisco film. How important was that setting for the production?

Adele Lim, writer-director of Princess Diaries 3, and a lifelong Princess Diaries fan: It is such a song of joy—not just in how [the film] talks about San Francisco but also in the small scenes. Garry Marshall was brilliant at this. In every scene, they are doing something amazing and fantastic and creative.

Berke: Cinderella and San Francisco were my biggest inspirations [for the production design]. Cinderella because I told Garry in my interview Mia was a princess who thought she was a frog, a.k.a. the Cinderella complex. The Princess Diaries is a timeless classic, with a timeless message: From time to time, the world makes us all feel like frogs, when in reality we are all princesses and princes. It’s a classic SF film as we deliberately filmed the city’s iconic sites through the lens of a fairy tale.

Karl-Walter Lindenlaub, cinematographer: We took advantage of the unique architecture and topography of San Francisco. We did want to ground the movie in reality: Anne’s character and her mother living in a middle-class San Francisco neighborhood made the possibility of becoming a princess more dramatic.

Do you have any favorite memories from filming?

Schwartzman: The cast was all living together at the Holiday Inn hotel at Fisherman’s Wharf, and we used to all go to dinner together. That’s when it feels like summer camp. There’s something powerful about that.

Lindenlaub: Working with Garry Marshall is one of the best experiences I ever had on a movie shoot. Garry loved to have a good time and the parties were legendary. We had a pumpkin-carving contest and a Thanksgiving parade where every department built its own float [and Garry was Santa Claus at the end]. The parade was held on the Disney lot with the head of the studio invited, and Julie Andrews was judging the best float.

Richwood: Annie was a huge fan of Pretty Woman. When Hector and I were on set with her, she was always trying to get us to tell stories. At one point, when we were shooting a scene together, she slid in for the gag reel to do the elevator scene [from Pretty Woman]. Hector and I were like, “Oh my god.” We were lame. We couldn’t play along. We were like, “We don’t remember!”

I remember very clearly saying to her on set, “You know you’re going to be at that level [like Julia Roberts]. You know that, right?” You can tell you are dealing with a bright, bright person with Annie. Hector and I sensed that about her. We were both like, “That one is going places. This is going to catapult her.” And she didn’t even know it yet. She made a big impact on her castmates.

With then-newcomer Anne Hathaway leading the production, was there extra pressure on her or a push to mentor her?

Richwood: Annie was an actor in training, but aren’t we all? She was even inspiring me. She was so poised, but I knew she must be going bonkers on the inside.

Morong: Anne Hathaway was a consummate professional from the beginning. She is a very skilled physical comedian who doesn’t always get the recognition she deserves. She was quite young, but she had the confidence and maturity to handle all the pressure of starring in a studio film opposite a Disney icon, Julie Andrews.

Elizondo: Julie Andrews was a great mentor to Anne Hathaway. She took her under her wing and sat with her and supported her completely. Anne was fortunate that she had support on three sides—from Garry, from Julie, and from myself. We gave her some tips on how to work the camera, do the scene as a professional, and work with lighting. It was very easy to give her some advice. It wasn’t pedantic or “now I want to teach you a lesson.” It was braided into the situation quite naturally.

Bruce Green, film editor: Annie was a trooper and willing to try new approaches to her lines. Scenes were rewritten constantly on set. The film was a comedy master class with Garry Marshall as the professor and Anne Hathaway as the star pupil. She’s a star but without the ego. She really held her own with Julie Andrews.

What was it like working with real-life film royalty, Julie Andrews? 

Caroline Goodall, the actress who played Mia’s artist single mother, Helen Thermopolis: Mary Poppins was the first film I ever saw and I spent much of my childhood trying to be Julie Andrews, so I felt I knew her. She has been a star for so long but her first instinct is to make others feel comfortable. She refused all the star perks. She also was a stickler for getting things right. We became the unofficial protocol police, making sure that table settings were correct, the proper way to curtsy and wave. We laughed all the time. She WAS the Queen of Genovia. She made you believe it existed.

Matarazzo: Mandy [Moore] and I specifically were really geeking out over Julie. We both had Julie sign our Sound of Music vinyl records. Mandy and I were so afraid to ask if she would sign them. We were terrified of one of the kindest women. And then she gave me a full book of Sondheim for my birthday and personally inscribed it. I absolutely adore her.

Richwood: I loved working with Julie Andrews. Every day on set, she would answer 10 or 12 vetted fan letters. If you’re Julie Andrews, you must get mountains of fan mail every day. But she did it herself, which was lovely. And she was very, very funny. To me, the public doesn’t get to see that very often in her performances. She’s not afraid to be edgy.

What is your favorite scene in the movie?

Goodall: My favorite scene was the rock-climbing scene. It introduces [Mia and her mother’s] relationship and there’s a lot of complex comic timing that had to feel effortless. And then of course the balloon popping with all that paint!

Lim: The relationship that Mia has with her mother was total wish fulfillment. You just immediately sensed it, not just where they lived but how they relate to each other….I didn’t fully realize that when I was watching it at the time, but I’m a mother now and I’m like, “Yes!” There is no one way to be a mother and this was such a wonderful depiction of what that mother-daughter role could be.

Matarazzo: [My character Lilly] finally has that moment with Mia on the basketball court and she says, “You have the power to affect change. You are in a position of power. Utilize it.” I think that, to me, is the strongest baseline for their friendship. It was one of my favorite scenes to shoot, and working with Annie is such a dream.

Green: In the scene where Lilly is listing all the reasons Mia should not be a princess, Annie was stepping on the bleachers, which were slippery from the rain. She took a bad spill and stayed completely in character. And it worked because she had established herself earlier as clumsy.

Elizondo: She really hurt herself. She had a bad bruise. But she kept going, and the cameras kept rolling, and that shows the kind of character she had. I said, “This young lady is strong, in more ways than one.” That impressed me a great deal.

Schwartzman: There was a scene I did for The Princess Diaries that got cut from the movie. They built a whole street at Disney on the lot for a date scene at a restaurant. I always wondered, Did I not do a good enough job for that scene to make the film? It still haunts me to this day.

But what I did feel good about was creating and coming up with ideas, like putting M&Ms on the keyboard. I think I brought M&Ms and ate them while I was doing the audition; I was trying to give myself an action and something to do with my hands, and I think Garry liked that.

What was Garry like as a director?

Green: Garry was that rare Hollywood director who put the people in his life above the film business. He was a warm man who would listen to any idea from a crew member. We laughed with people and at the situations they found themselves in. We don’t laugh at them. Garry wasn’t very interested in irony or sarcasm. When he first interviewed me, Garry said, “People think I do comedy, but what I do is charm.” Garry was charming, and so were his films.

When Garry Marshall offered me The Princess Diaries to edit, I allowed my daughter to read the script. By then she was 16 and she complained about it and wanted to know why I wasn’t editing films like Pulp Fiction and Scream. I told Garry Marshall and he said, “We’ll fix her, I’ll put her in the movie,” which he did.

Elizondo: Garry believes in nepotism. He includes the neighborhood, for heaven’s sake. He was very generous. His whole family at some point or the other would be in the film. If you worked with Garry, you became a F.O.G.—a friend of Garry. You can be judged by how many people love you, as The Wizard of Oz says. And Garry was loved. I miss him.

Goodall: A comic genius, he loved improvisation, but he also had two comedy writers on set, Marty and Marty—I kid you not—who wrote one-liners on little notepads and handed them to Garry. If Garry liked one, he’d shout over the camera, “Hey Caroline, say this!” He’d expect you to seamlessly insert the joke, time the execution, and return to the script, without blinking!

Schwartzman: Garry had this fatherly feeling to me. He taught me a lot. He would say to me, “You’re slouching. Fix your posture.” He was a very nurturing person whom I cared a lot about.

Matarazzo: Garry Marshall makes it incredibly, incredibly easy. He is just an auteur. He was also incredibly generous. If he had a friend who wasn’t going to qualify for health insurance for the year through SAG, he’d throw them two days of work to be able to get insurance. They broke the mold when he came around. He was always very encouraging of the celebration of life and just being able to do what [we] do—isn’t it grand that this is how we get to make a living?

Lim: With the third film, we want to honor the way Garry made his movies. Speaking with Debra [Martin Chase] and Annie, just the culture and environment he created on set, with it being this nurturing family environment, you sense that energy when you watch the movie. He really made it about the people making the movie. That’s the overlap I want [to have with directing this franchise]. Annie, who is also a producer on the third film, really made sure we are on the same page and have the same vision for the movie. It’s like family—you’re getting married to people when you’re making a movie together.

Were there any surprises about how your character is perceived today by audiences on social media?

Matarazzo: I mean, there is clearly some sort of neurospiciness [with Lilly]. There are several things she says that are incredibly out of pocket, like that line “It’s been three months, aren’t you over it yet?” about Mia’s dead dad. And it’s awful how she berates Mia in the limo. Looking at it from an adult perspective, I’ve gotten message after message and have been tagged in so many things about how Lilly is just fucking awful. I can completely see that and understand that, and I think in a deeper, more subconscious way, she was desperately afraid of losing her friend and felt like she was being betrayed. To her credit, she also was willing to apologize and she was also willing to recognize where and when she erred—which is not something that adults even know how to do.

Richwood: I’ve seen memes of me muttering something in my robe. Somebody even sent me a Mr. Robutussin robe from Etsy.

Schwartzman: I see stuff online with funny internet debates about Chris Pine or myself joining the [third] movie, about who wants whom more. I have friends who show me things on TikTok when The Princess Diaries comes up. I’m grateful for any time anyone celebrates anything I’ve had a chance to work on. I know that people identify with my character in The Princess Diaries and I love that people are discovering that for the first time now. That means everything.

What have you heard about The Princess Diaries 3?

Elizondo: The rumor [is that I will be returning]. Of course, the queen [Julie Andrews] and myself. I’m part of the deal. The question is how and what incarnation of script this will be. There have been many changes and they have to change it. That’s the way moviemaking is. We’re looking forward to having this beautiful bird fly. [Editor’s note: The film’s full cast list has not yet been announced.]

Richwood: I need to call and find out if I’m going to be in Princess Diaries 3. My character might be an Oscar-winning writer at this point: “I’m writing your biopic!” [to Mia].

Schwartzman: I have been approached [for the third film]. There was some light checking in about the one they’re working on. I’ve just been asked, “Hey, do you want to come do it?” and my answer is yes. But I don’t know what that means to the writer-director [Adele Lim].

Anne coming back to do it is a big deal. I’m sure it’s also challenging to decide which direction to go in for the film. It’s not easy to jump into a third one and do right by the fandom and the material. I’m not sure how they’re going to balance the characters with bringing all these people back, but I think that’s what’s in store. Chris [Pine] is such a famous actor now that they can’t not put in the movie. They can’t overlook him. I’m just excited about reconnecting with everyone involved.

Matarazzo: We have been on this trilogy train for a very, very long time. When I get the call that “OK, we’re ready to go,” I will happily be there. I know that Debra is pushing for it. Annie obviously is pushing for it. The script is there, we do have a director attached. But we’ve gotten our hopes up before. Hopefully miracles happen.

As for my character, I hope we get to see a fully embodied Lilly as an adult that is living in her deepest truth. I think that she would be living in the Amazon, completely off grid, working with local communities. And Mia gets in touch with her and she pops back with a slight tan and doesn’t shave her armpits and wears Birkenstocks and is really just down to earth and respectful of the different positions in authority and getting to respect where her best friend is currently.

Lim: Annie has been completely involved in the story process. Annie is a producer on this and in my career, I have worked with a lot of actors. She is the hardest-working actor I have had the honor of launching a project with. She has been incredibly active, vocal, and participatory in the story sessions. We are very excited about that and can’t wait to share.

There is a tremendous amount of responsibility that comes with tackling a much-beloved franchise: What are you bringing to it? Why is there a new iteration of the story? When I watched the movie, I was a young woman who was identifying with Mia Thermopolis. I grew up on Disney princess movies. There are a million princess wish-fulfillment movies. There are no queen wish-fulfillment movies. The majority of movies about queens are cautionary tales: a queen has to give up something dear, or has to kill a part of herself. Why is that? Most of us are going to spend our lives being queens and not princesses.

What does being a woman in charge of an entire country look like, of being able to hold on to what makes you, your femininity? What does the female point of view in ruling look like? Queens have been the most successful monarchs in European history. But their stories are always told as cautionary tales. What is our version of that?

We want to be able to put out a wonderful, amazing movie that fills your heart, but is also authentic in telling you, “This is the next chapter in your journey as a young woman. It’s not only about being a princess. There is this future where you are a queen, and let’s see this bright, shining version of it.” For me, that’s why we’re doing the third Princess Diaries and we’re showing Mia as a queen.

Is Garry’s estate and family involved in the third film? What will the franchise look like without him?

Lim: His family is not creatively involved day to day, but they are aware and incredibly supportive. His daughter [Caroline], who played Charlotte Kutaway [in the films]—I can’t promise [she’ll be in it]—but the intent is always to keep that thread running through it.

Schwartzman: If the third one happens, I don’t have Garry Marshall there to tell me to straighten my back and get my hair out of my eyes. Everybody involved at this point will do their best to help create that feeling in the new one and help it resonate in that way. We obviously have to honor and respect Garry as the force behind the first [two] films and the impact of the movie.

What else can you tease about The Princess Diaries 3?

Lim: When I pitched for the movie, there was so much potential for audiences to really get a sense of Genovia in Europe. We’re all familiar with charming hamlets in Europe, and having spent a fair amount of time now in Prague and Budapest, Genovia feels like a combination of that old charming European feel coupled with a modern sensibility—because these cities and these countries have been around for centuries, but Mia is a modern, progressive leader and we’re going to want to see that progressive modern touch in the city as well….As for the plot after The Princess Diaries, Princess Mia has spent a couple of decades being the queen of Genovia. After the pandemic and how the world is today, we yearn to be transported somewhere and we yearn for authenticity. We are creating a fantasy, but the best fantasies aren’t just spun out of nothing: They come from something real. Audiences can feel it. That’s what we want to build for them. Fans have waited long enough for Genovia. We want to give them a Genovia worth waiting for.

How can fans help get Princess Diaries 3 greenlit?

Matarazzo: I hope that we get to do the third and that it gets to wrap up well. I’m excited to bring the third one and I know people are excited to receive it. I don’t have the power to green-light it, just FYI, because of the number of people that come to me…I’m like, “Write Disney a letter. It’s above my pay grade.” We’re all ready, but it’s up to the powers that be to give us the full green light. Until I’m on set, I don’t know anything.

Lim: Keep the faith. The reason Debra, Annie, Disney, and I are here is that the fans have always kept this alive. We have always known it’s real in our hearts, but seeing the reaction, the continued faith and enthusiasm from fans, is the reason we are doing this. So keep it up. Keep the faith up. This has been something that we have been wanting to see happen for a very long time, and having the continued support from the fans has been integral. It’s been a long journey and not because people don’t want to do it. We just want to get it right.

These interviews were edited and condensed for clarity.

Watch The Princess Diaries on Disney+