Flipping the Fairy Tale: Directors John Ripa and Alyce Tzue on Making Netflix’s ‘Steps’

Netflix’s Steps directors John Ripa and Alyce Tzue talk the stunning animation style and inspirations, an incredible cast, and breaking tropes in this interview.

Netflix’s upcoming animated feature Steps completely upends everything you think you know about Cinderella’s traditional villains.

Sick of living in her sister’s shadow, Lilith (Ali Wong) takes matters into her own hands by stealing the Fairy Godmother’s magic wand, accidentally fracturing the classic story and plunging the kingdom into chaos under the tyrannical Priscilla (Nikki Glaser). To save their world and piece their family back together, Lilith must form an unexpected alliance with Cinderella (Amanda Seyfried), battling biker trolls and navigating the treacherous Screaming Woods on an epic quest of empathy and sisterhood.

Mama’s Geeky sat down with directors John Ripa and Alyce Tzue to discuss the film’s stunning animation style, the historical evolution of the Cinderella myth, working alongside a powerhouse cast that includes Bette Midler, and the profound message they hope audiences of all ages will take away from this beautifully broken fairy tale.

Steps Directors Talk Upcoming Netflix Film

Mama’s Geeky: Can you talk about bringing the animation together? The finished footage looks absolutely gorgeous.

Alyce Tzue: Oh, thank you! From the beginning, one of our philosophies around the animation was to harness 3D, push it to its boundaries, and really stylize it. One of our secret ingredients is actually our textures. You saw the close-ups of the clothing and everything. A lot of the textures of this Rococo world are dessert-inspired. We have wood that is inspired by chocolate, and architecture inspired by things like sugar crystals and espresso foam. It’s not literal, but the goal is that when you watch it, you kind of start salivating and just want to touch it.

John Ripa: Yeah, it’s really great in terms of creating this incredibly rich, detailed world that Alyce is talking about. Then we find ways to have the characters pop out of that environment because it supports their journeys, their layers, and their emotions. Because we break the fairy tale, we get to take them into all these different worlds and introduce different characters that you haven’t seen yet. We really contrast the rich, layered, and textured side of the film with the traditional world of our kingdom.

Mama’s Geeky: Is it daunting at all to tackle a story as iconic as Cinderella, even though you are changing it up?

John Ripa: It definitely was one of the big challenges of the project because everybody knows it. Cinderella is the big fairy tale that people know the most. One of the things I found really interesting while working on this was the actual history of the story. It goes all the way back to ancient Greece, where an eagle steals a Greek slave’s sandal and drops it in the lap of an Egyptian pharaoh. Then it goes through a Chinese version that introduces the fairy godmother, an Italian version that introduces the evil stepsisters, and a French version that gives us the pumpkin and the glass slipper. You can see the evolution of this story over time, so a lot of it became about: what would we do with it? What can we say? That’s where the elements Alyce mentioned became so key.

Alyce Tzue: Yes, it’s about the message we want to send—that everyone deserves their happily ever after. Combining that message with a canon and a fairy tale that everyone already loves was definitely a challenge, but incredibly rewarding.

Mama’s Geeky: The stepsisters are usually terrible in Cinderella. How did you approach humanizing these gray-area “villains”?

Alyce Tzue: Exactly, and no one ever thinks they are the villain of their own story. The whole movie tackles these fairy tale archetypes. Sure, our stepsisters are flawed, but they are complete human beings and relatable women. Even Cinderella—you think she’s this perfect girl everyone wants to be, but she has her own issues and problems to deal with. It’s really about the two of them realizing that they are both layered human beings. There is rarely such a thing as pure evil or pure good.

John Ripa: Every character in our film, including the villains, has layers that we unfold and reveal over the course of the movie. We really wanted to lean into characters people have seen for generations and start to show different sides of them.

Mama’s Geeky: I have to talk about the frog because she looks so cute! Was it always going to be a frog, or did you play around with other animals?

John Ripa: This animated movie has been through a lot of evolutions, and honestly, it has only gotten better. But I don’t actually think it was ever anything other than a frog. It just seemed kind of perfect because it’s so cute. The other animals you traditionally associate with Cinderella, like mice and horses, play their expected roles in the story. The frog is meant to represent the breaking of the Cinderella story where it goes completely off the rails.

In looking at the frog design, Margot has those signature hair buns, so the frog’s eyes actually mimic that silhouette. We wanted to make sure that the personality of Margot as a human got transferred into the frog so her spirit didn’t disappear. Margot’s character is bouncing, fun, and great, so we brought that into the frog’s animation. She’s basically a bouncing ball with legs. We wanted to make sure we connected the two so you still see the spirit of the character Stephanie Hsu plays.

Mama’s Geeky: This is an absolutely incredible cast. Can you talk about bringing them on board?

Alyce Tzue: My gosh, Ali Wong is incredibly special. You’re trying to find someone with wit and humor to represent that sharp comedy, especially with one of our producers being Amy Poehler—that standard of comedy is so high. Yet, Ali can hold vulnerability in a beautiful way.

John Ripa: And Amanda Seyfried is fantastic, especially when we were talking about adding layers to Cinderella. She can handle the heart, the humor, and the quirkiness, but she brings such incredible depth, emotion, and heart to her performance. We were just blown away in the recording sessions.

Then you have Bette Midler, the legend herself. We pitched to her in the room and she basically accepted the role right there. It was the biggest celebration; our jaws were on the floor like, “Are you serious, Bette Midler?” She is the quintessential pro—there’s a reason she’s a Tony, Emmy, and Grammy winner. She uses her musical background to bring a musical quality to the Fairy Godmother, and she cares deeply about things like articulation and enunciation. She would call us a week before a recording session to know all the ins and outs of what was driving her character, and she’d show up with notes all over her script. We feel incredibly grateful.

Mama’s Geeky: I appreciate that this feels like a family movie that doesn’t dumb things down for kids, so parents can be engaged too. How did you balance that?

John Ripa: That was definitely one of the things we really wanted to do. We wanted to make something families can experience together, where parents can sit down and find humor, entertainment, a beautiful world, and heart. Everybody gets something out of it, from the slapstick that makes kids laugh to the deeper layers. It really speaks to all ages.

Alyce Tzue: Beyond the sharpness of the comedy, when it comes to the emotional heart, we try not to shy away from how difficult it is sometimes for two different people to find common ground. Ultimately, the message of empathy and reaching out a hand to someone who is different is a huge message we’d love kids and adults to walk away with.

John Ripa: It feels really important to say in the world today—getting people to think about who is around them and extending a hand when someone feels outside of the norm. That was really our North Star while making this film.

Steps will premiere later this year on Netflix.

Related: Nikki Glaser Joins The Cast Of Netflix’s Steps