Vanessa Hudgens found an unlikely hit when her Netflix holiday film, 2018's The Princess Switch, went absolutely viral. For the rom-com, the actress embodied two lookalike characters: Stacy the up-and-coming baker and Lady Margaret, the Duchess of Montenaro. Following its success, Hudgens stepped into the roles again, plus one in life-of-the-party Fiona, for last year’s The Princess Switch: Switched Again. Now she’s back for three roles once more in the recent Netflix release: The Princess Switch: Romancing the Star. That’s a whole lot of Hudgens!
While speaking to CinemaBlend, Vanessa Hudgens shared that there was a specific reason why she decided to star in a trilogy that very much hinges on her shoulders to play three distinct roles at once. In her words:
I actually said the only way I’ll do another one is if it’s Fiona-centric because it’s just so much fun playing a character that is so outrageous and over the top and I also feel like she’s very dividing for people. People either love her or hate her, so it’s really nice really exploring her story and showing why she is the way that she is and I hope people will have more empathy towards people they don’t understand.
The Princess Switch: Romancing The Star turns the focus on Fiona, who is dynamically different from the straight-laced qualities of Stacy and Lady Margaret. The blonde-haired cousin of Margaret is all about the drama, and that excited Vanessa Hudgens as an actor. As she shared in our interview, she would not have made a third Princess Switch movie if it wasn’t for Fiona’s spunk and layered character development the threequel has her go through.
In fact, Vanessa Hudgens also shared that her favorite of the three romances in the Princess Switch movies is the one we see in Romancing The Star with Fiona. As she continued:
I think that Fiona’s love story and her journey in this is really special because you get to see this woman who has built up walls and learned how to operate within the confines of them and she realizes how limiting that is to herself. How it’s almost a disservice and she has to drop those walls in order to be vulnerable. And when you are vulnerable that’s when real love can be let in.
While Stacy and Lady Margaret are more typical romantic comedy leads, it’s not every day that a movie of the genre explores a character like Fiona who is oftentimes ridiculous and over-the-top, perhaps annoying and off the beaten track in the way that Romancing the Star does, by making her the leading lady. The movie has Lady Margaret and Stacy recruiting Fiona out of her probation to help them track down the priceless “Star of Peace,” which has been mysteriously stolen.
As the movie unfolds, we learn of a longtime connection between Fiona and Remy Hii’s Peter Maxwell, who is a disgraced former Interpol investigator who runs his own private security firm. As the two work together to get back the Star of Peace, a dynamic we’ve never seen in a Princess Switch movie goes on between them.
It’s certainly understandable as to why Vanessa Hudgens might not have wanted to make more Princess Switch movies considering how much of the project relies on her and her multiple performances, but Romancing The Star gave her an exciting reason to get back into the holiday spirit for the Netflix film.
