It's safe to say '90s kids will never forget Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmatians.
While the older generations know Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction and the younger generations know of her from Guardians of the Galaxy, the generation between will always know her as the Disney villain, or as Close likes to call her: a Disney witch.
Now, the younger generations are getting a reboot of the classic villain, but she won't be played by Close. The new Cruella will be played by Emma Stone, and we already know she'll be just as terrifying as her predecessor.
But while we wait for the new film, let's take a look at how Close got one of her most famous roles and how she kept a part of Cruella close to her heart...literally.
The Director Knew He Wanted Close For Cruella Immediately
Anywhere you ask they'll say that Close was perfect as Cruella in the 1996 Disney live-action movie and its 2000 sequel, 102 Dalmatians, but the director knew it from the start.
Director Stephen Herek has said that before he knew anything else about the film, he knew he wanted Close for the villain. "When I finally committed to do the movie, the first thing that I thought about was Cruella, pure evil, and Glenn came immediately to mind."
Maybe that was due to her terrifying moments in Fatal Attraction, where she played a psychotic stalker after she has a one-night stand with Michael Douglas. No one could forget that ending bathroom scene. She plays the conniving character perfectly, but before that Close hadn't really ever played the villain.
At first, Cruella didn't intrigue Close, and Herek had to coax her into playing the character.
"Cruella was milquetoast and almost took a back seat to Jasper and Horace. . . . There's also a tremendous amount of degradation heaped upon Cruella," he said. "That was also part of Glenn's reticence, going into pig slop, slime, and so forth. Once she finally got into it, she really got into it. I want to say she's a trouper, but it was more than that."
Close disagrees; she took the part because it was better than going back into the freezing rain of England.
"After the first take I didn't want to get out into the cold air, so I just kinda stayed. That was the good part of the day," she said.
"The worse part was that from then on, I had to wear that coat, which was about 90 pounds, and be totally slimed for every shot and every scene. And the wig. God! It was like a cow pie. They put it in the refrigerator overnight to keep it from spoiling because it also had eggs in it."
Her costumes might have been a pain to wear but she must have liked them, even a little bit because she took all of them home with her.
Close Has A Very Important Clause In Her Contract
In a conversation for Variety's Actors on Actors series Close told Pete Davidson that she's had a clause in her contract that says she gets all of her costumes for the past 30 years.
So for her to play Cruella, Disney had to agree to give her all of her extravagant costumes, including the jacket and wig she hated wearing... even if they were more expensive than they thought. She said that Disney tried to find a loophole to get out of the deal but she stuck to her guns and didn't allow it.
"I got in my contract that I got to keep all my costumes that I wore in the movie," she said. "Then when they found out how expensive they were, they were unhappy that it was in my contract. They wanted to make another copy, another set, for me. I said no."
The costumes were created by Oscar-winning designer Anthony Powell and Rosemary Burrows, and Close has every single thing they designed. But they're not collecting dust in her closet anymore. She donated them to Indiana University where they are in an "apocalypse-proof" area to keep them safe. Just thinking about them though, makes her sad.
"So I have all the Cruella costumes from both movies...in fact, I have a huge costume collection that's now at Indiana University. It thrills me because I consider costumers as important a collaboration as the director, frankly. I'm really proud that all those costumes are going to be saved," she continued to tell Davidson.
She also revealed that she told the filmmakers that she wanted her character to say some of the classic lines that appear in the original animated version to make the character even eviler.
"I asked to get some of the original dialogue from the animated feature because she said, 'Chloroform them! Drown them!' It's really horrible stuff," she told Davidson. "I realized the meaner she was, the better she was."
A while back, Close jumped back into Cruella for Bette Midler's annual New York Restoration Project Halloween fundraiser, but she wasn't wearing her actual Cruella costume. She can't seem to shake the character, she loves it so much.
As for Stone's Cruella, Close won't be far away. She's stepping behind the scenes to produce the film, watching as the character she made famous gets a fresh new reboot. But if Close gets sentimental about watching a younger star play Cruella, all she has to do is visit Indiana University to see and try on her old costumes and feel like the queen of the villains again.