"Who is Belle? What does she do?"

"Where does she come from? How does she spend her time before she goes and meets Beast?"

And so I wanted to create a bit more of a backstory for her.

You kinda get a little bit of a sense of why she doesn't fit in, like she likes to read books,

and she's not desperately in love with Gaston,

but why is it that she's such an outsider, why does she feel like she doesn't fit so much?

And I really wanted to get to the bottom of that.

We kinda made her this mad, wacky inventor.

Emma: Which was, uh, originally kind of like her father... (Entertainment) Weekly: Yeah.

Was that, was that role, and it kind of became more about Belle.

E: Kevin Kline's character for my father became much more of this slightly frightened, slightly nervous, cautious,

but very sensible, wise, loving father.

So it was really fun to do that and add that on.

W: Yeah, crazy old Maurice, was building... E: Crazy old Maurice! But instead...

W: ...was building like a wood cutting machine... E: Yeah! But now it's Belle!

E: Belle's like creating this mad, uh, she essentially creates a prototype for the first washing machine.

E: So that instead of having to do the washing herself, she can sit and read...

W: She has a- E: while her machine is taking care of it.

W: It's a barrel, with like a- E: Mhm!

W: a thing that attaches to a donkey and... E: With a donkey, and pulls it around...

E: I don't know, it's a whole thing. But yeah! W: (Laughing) Donkey-powered washing machine!

E: Yeah! Donkey-powered washing machine!

That's also a really traumatic scene in the film because she doesn't just invent this thing,

that starts (...) washing clothes in the public square.

W: She's using her spare time to teach another small girl to read.

W: And then the villagers come -- and I don't want to give away too much --

but they destroy her machine, there's like an anti-intellectualism in this village,

W: which you get from her song. E: Yeah!

W: There must be more than this provisional life- E: Yeah.

W: that you really get a sense of it in this movie.

W: They're hostile to her, E: Intelligence. W: for bringing change, and her intelligence.

W: They don't think women should read. E: There is- They don't think women should read,

And it goes further than there, which is really interesting that you picked up on that,

which is that they're deeply suspicious of intelligence,

and anyone that, you know, is

going beyond that, and they don't like anything that's foreign, unknown,

that might be beyond their realm of experience.

And so, they really do - they try, it's...

breaking the washing machine is symbolic of not just them, you know,

breaking something she spent hours working on,

but them really trying to break her spirit,

and kind of trying to kind of push her and mold her into a more acceptable version of herself.

I think that happens a lot with women, and a lot with young girls,

where it's like, "Oh, that's nice, but why don't we just kind of push you this way a little bit?"

E: And like, W: "Why don't you do what's expected or traditional-" E: Yeah!

E: "We prefer this aspect of your personality, let's cultivate that area, or that sort of thing that you're good at."

"And let's just kind of like push that side a little bit."