THE NEW YORK POST – When Richard Madden told his buds that he’d be playing Prince Charming in “Cinderella,” they laughed in his face. “Endlessly. They could not stop, and they made fun of me about it for a long time,” Madden tells The Post. “Then I actually brought them to London to the first screening, and after the film, they all had smiles ear to ear and puffy eyes from crying. So I got the last laugh there.”

In theaters from last Friday, Madden stars as the leading man in the live-action revamp of the 1950 Disney animated classic “Cinderella.”

Hailing from Scotland, the 28-year-old actor, who is dating “Doctor Who” actress Jenna Coleman, is best known for another royal role — as Robb Stark on “Game of Thrones.” His time on the show came to a bloody end in 2013 thanks to the now-infamous “Red Wedding.”

“It was traumatic [because] it was a long week of shooting that scene, and those were all my friends and, like, family — these people that I’ve spent a lot of time with,” he says.

Though he says that trauma isn’t responsible for his running in the opposite direction toward the squeaky-clean Disney flick, he does admit to welcoming the differences.

“I’m not going to lie,” he says. “It’s nice to be in something with a happy ending for a change!”

But for Madden, filming the fairy tale wasn’t as easy as the waving of a wand. He trained for months in dressage for his horseback scenes with a horse that he says “didn’t want to like” him. Then there were his skintight white pants that made him feel self-conscious and exposed. But the real monster was the ballroom dancing.

“I’m not a naturally gifted dancer, so I had to train my feet four days a week for about two months to try and learn these dances,” he says. “I had to do that before they let me near Cinderella’s dress so I didn’t destroy it with my feet. I destroyed two practice dresses completely,” he says.

Madden will next star in a West End production of “Romeo and Juliet” with his Cinderella, Lily James. He’s also shot the Paris-set thriller “Bastille Day” alongside Idris Elba. Now, he’d like to do a movie on a spaceship — or just anything but more dancing. (source)