Senior Model Designer Ryan Van Woerkom introduces the cast of characters who are singing Be Our Guest in LEGO Disney 43263 Beauty and the Beast Castle.
One of the most memorable parts of Beauty and the Beast is its cast of characters, many of whom are cursed objects. Servants of the Beast, these characters are also caught up in the witch’s curse and their new form is linked to their role in the castle – Mrs Potts, for example, is the head housekeeper turned into a teapot.
Although there is a central cast of characters – including Cogsworth, Lumiere and Mrs Potts – there’s also a host of other minor characters throughout the film and associated media, which meant Senior Model Designer Ryan Van Woerkom had a big job choosing who to include in his towering LEGO Disney model, 43263 Beauty and the Beast Castle.
“Be our guest”
There was more to his decision making than just the character’s popularity or the amount of screen time they have in the film. “In terms of the cursed furniture characters, I don’t know what we want to call them, the only weird one that we had to leave out – although they never really belonged there anyway, but we, as the Disney team, just thought he was hilarious – was the hat stand who appears in the final battle when the mob is coming in.
“He’s got a little top hat on, he’s sort of boxing, and we had built him, but he never really made it seriously into the model. Thematically, there wasn’t a room that made sense to put him in and it never shows in the movie where he is. I think he maybe is in the Beast’s room, but because we chose to not do any of the bedrooms to make a bigger space for the staircase, dining room and ballroom, that didn’t make the cut.”
It wasn’t just characters from the 1991 film who were considered; Ryan remembers watching Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, a 1997 direct-to-video animated film that starred the voice of Tim Curry as Forte, the intimidating pipe organ. “I should say that Forte was cut. When we talked about it, it was very obscure, and I did wonder if it was just something I like. So that was talked about, but we thought it was too much of a deep cut,” says Ryan.
Ryan designed 2020’s Harry Potter advent calendar (75981), which included a particularly impressive brick-built gramophone. Although the miniature builds included in the advent calendar feel a world away from a large model like 43263, working on the former did lend itself to designing Lumiere, Cogsworth, Fifi, Sultan, Armoire the Wardrobe and Chef Bouche.
“I think doing those little bits of furniture and details is the most enjoyable and relaxing part of the process. You know, when you’re trying to decide on the size of the facade, the structure itself, that typically is more stressful. It’s asking how am I going to fit everything in, whereas when you’re doing these small things, you really get to iterate and do a lot of different versions to find the right fit. And that’s something I love about designing advent calendars, for example.
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“When you’re doing tons of mini builds, changed you make don’t necessarily create problems later on, whereas when you’re making changes on a big structure, you have to see how it all interacts. I had a lot of fun working with my colleague, Robert [Lehmann], who did the concept model for this castle, on all the different versions of the characters.
“I particularly had a lot of fun with Sultan, the little footstool dog character, and doing different versions and working out how to capture the tassels correctly. We played around with the NINJAGO tassels that are sometimes used on swords and weapons, and we tried different versions of that, but we ultimately really enjoyed this one that had a bit of texture and allowed it to be posed a little more dynamically.
“We spent so much time on Cogsworth and ultimately went more towards level of detail while sacrificing accurate scale, because Lumiere is already super oversized as well, but we accept that he’s almost as tall as a minifigure so that he looks iconic and looks like the character. But yeah, it was super fun just designing all the little furniture bits.”
Ryan’s love of buildable objects also extends to one of the model’s central features, the dining room. The musical number Be Our Guest is possibly the most iconic song from Beauty and the Beast, and in 43263 turning a splat plate in the dining room leads to the crockery and chandelier spinning, imitating the grand spectacle from the film.
For Ryan, it was important to get this room right. “The scene that I fell in love with the most and is also one of the most memorable from the films, is the Be Our Guest dining room scene. I think the function is very simple, but very magical. And just bringing that whole scene to life, just all the different platters and the chandelier above spin like you see in the movie, as if they’re dancing.
“My colleague, Robert, who worked on the set with me, he spent a lot of time, just like, playing around with different functions and really pushing for it to be a functional piece, instead of just a show piece that just had stationary plates and things.”
Build a miniature version of LEGO Disney 43263 Beauty and the Beast Castle!
“Here’s where she meets Prince Charming…”
It’s not just the Beast’s servants who are cursed; Prince Adam becomes the eponymous Beast after turning away an old woman in need of help. In the film, the Beast towers over everyone else, and 43263 Beauty and the Beast Castle could have been an opportunity to deliver Beast as a big-fig.
Beast was always going to be kept at minifigure scale, but the question of whether characters should be a big-fig is a frequent discussion. “It is something that we talk about a lot on the Disney design team. Are there different body types that we should consider creating new figure for? Unfortunately, even if it looks cool, we do have some limitations on what fits into the LEGO brand and the DNA of the LEGO minifigure.
“In this case, we were always pretty satisfied with the look of the over-moulded head of the beast and his tail giving him a little bit of extra height. I think it would look very interesting to consider a different body type, but it was never part of the scope of this particular set.”
Then there’s Belle, the girl who is so peculiar, if you believe the film’s opening song. In the set, she wears the beautiful yellow ballgown from when her and the Beast dance to the timeless song Beauty and the Beast. The figure is similar to, but also different from, the Belle that appeared in 21352 Magic of Disney. It’s not the only outfit Belle wears, and her blue dress from the film’s opening is arguably as iconic as the ballgown.
Given this outfit has not yet appeared in minifigure form, the design team did consider including it in this set, and it would have been hidden behind the Wardrobe. “Ultimately, it came down to both space and not wanting to sacrifice a novelty figure, because we do have limitations on how many new decorations we can do each year, so we have to budget those accordingly.
“We chose to go for her iconic version of her yellow dress and include extra characters. We did still allocate one of those decorated pieces to make her seated dress, which is then placed inside Madam Wardrobe, because we realised it was very important that Belle can appear sitting in the dining room scene, not just like standing on or beside her chair. I would definitely love to see Belle in her blue dress one day.”
Gaston is also included in the set, who appeared previously in the recently-retired 43227 Villain Icons, whilst Maurice (Belle’s father) and LeFou (Gaston’s accomplice) make their minifigure debuts. Still, LEGO Disney has only released minifigure-based sets relatively recently, as it typically favours mini-dolls.
Given that legacy, there is always discussion on whether minifigures or mini-dolls will be most suitable for a Disney set. “We tend to favour minifigures for all of our 18+ sets on the Disney team. Where we usually start having those dialogues is for lower age marked sets, so anywhere around the 9+ range, we start asking, who is this set primarily for? Is it for kids to grew up with our lower age marked Disney Princess sets and are familiar with the mini-doll? Is it for someone who’s primarily a Disney fan but isn’t quite as familiar with LEGO sets and therefore maybe the minifigure is more iconic and recognisable to them? But this one had minifigures from the beginning.”
Brick-built and minifigure, 43263 Beauty and the Beast Castle is packed with a host of characters to recreate the major scenes from the film. And they’re necessary – this 2,916 pieces is a towering centrepiece model that requires a host of characters to populate it. They’re certainly ready to welcome builders with a musical revue over dinner.
43263 Beauty and the Beast Castle is available to order at LEGO.com. Get a subscription to Blocks, the monthly LEGO magazine for fans, so you’re ready for an exclusive interview about the set in Issue 128 – including a peek at the original digital model that started the whole design process.