Richard Madden opens up about just how Cinderella and her Prince Charming get together, and how they rely on each other to free them from the restrictions in their lives in the forthcoming adaptation by director Kenneth Branagh and screenwriter Chris Weitz.

It’s nice to see modern big screen fairytale re-tellings looking at relationships in a much more equal way. Rather than princesses of late being swept of their feet by proverbial knights in shining armour, they’re coming together while fighting for justice in their own lives. You had ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’, which saw a clear romance forming between the two title characters as they worked together to lead an army, and then there is, of course, ‘Frozen’ which saw bravery on the part of both Anna and her faithful quest companion Kristoff. Now ‘Cinderella’ brings together two souls, who must help each other escape the prison of their families.

‘I think [Prince Charming] goes through a huge change from the start’, Richard Madden says of his character. ‘From when he meets her and with what happens with his father during the film and how he learns to be his own man and to stand up against things he doesn’t agree with.’ It certainly seems that the Prince is less authoritative than his status allows him, with him struggling to overcome the King’s demands of his love life. Meanwhile, Cinderella (played by ‘Downton Abbey”s Lily James) is being forced to scrub her own home from top to bottom by her evil stepmother Lady Tremaine (Cate Blanchett) and her hideous daughters (in case you didn’t already know the story).

‘You take these two characters and you take the best qualities that are within them and over the course of the film you see these qualities be pushed and tested’, Madden continues. ‘The connection they have with each other, even though they’re far apart, brings those best qualities out.’ (source)