The Kardashians Aren't the Only Ones: Kate Middleton Also Gets Compared to an Into the Woods Character

Christine Baranski says movie musical also reminds her of Princess Diana

Christine Baranski garnered a ton of headlines recently when she compared Cinderella's evil stepfamily in Into the Woods to the Kardashians.

"It's gotten a lot mileage because, you know, it rings true, probably," Baranski, who plays the wicked stepmother in Into the Woods, told me on Friday while promoting the musical movie. "Those people, by that I mean the people in the film, they would love to be famous and wear lots of fabulous clothes.

"[Director Rob Marshall] and I talked about them and he said they would be the Kardashians of today. They're desperate for their moment to be out there and what could be more that than marrying a prince."

No surprise, but the Cinderella (played fabulously by Anna Kendrick) storyline also reminds Baranski of Kate Middleton. "When I was in England [shooting the movie], I would stand in gift shops and stare at all the tourist books about the royal wedding," she said. "I was like, 'This girl just went to school with him. She's not royalty. She doesn't have royal lineage.' Imagine what her mother must be thinking."

Baranski said the Into the Woods' Cinderella is probably more like Princess Diana than anybody else.

"She becomes a princess and then it's like, 'What—wait a minute! This isn't what I thought it would be. I'm in prison here,'" she said. "I'm not sure Lady Diana wanted to be a princess. It was kind of thrust upon her. My god, what happened to her life? She was just struggling to be somebody in the context of all that."

Baranski's shooting schedule for Into the Woods was quite intense. She shot the film in the U.K. while working at the same time on The Good Wife in New York City.

"I was commuting," she said. "I commuted back and forth. Producers on both ends worked it out so I could fly in and out, which I did maybe eight or 10 times from August through Thanksgiving.

"Rob said, 'I want you in this and we'll do whatever we need to do to make it happen,'" Baranski recalled. "And they did. They made it happen. How lucky am I?"

Into the Woods is in theaters on Christmas Day.