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How new 'Beauty and the Beast' features a much more modern Belle

Disney's upcoming live-action remake of its 1991 film features a more modern Belle, thanks to its 26-year-old star, Emma Watson.
/ Source: TODAY

"Beauty and the Beast" may be a tale as old as time, but it just got a fresh new update. Disney's upcoming live-action remake of its 1991 film features a more modern Belle, thanks to its 26-year-old star, Emma Watson.

Though she's still captured, and later swept off her feet by the Beast, played by "Downton Abbey" star Dan Stevens, this time around bookish Belle — and not her father — is the brainy inventor.

"In the animated movie, it’s her father who is the inventor, and we actually co-opted that for Belle,” Watson told Entertainment Weekly. “I was like, ‘Well, there was never very much information or detail at the beginning of the story as to why Belle didn’t fit in, other than she liked books. Also what is she doing with her time?’"

"So, we created a backstory for her, which was that she had invented a kind of washing machine, so that, instead of doing laundry, she could sit and use that time to read instead," the actress said.

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In the new Bill Condon-directed fairy tale, Belle has the same tender relationship with her father, Maurice, played by Oscar winner Kevin Kline, but now the overprotective papa creates intricate music boxes, each one representing a country he won't allow adventurous Belle to visit.

"Clash of the Titans" star Luke Evans portrays the dastardly Gaston, with all our favorite inanimate friends still a part of the enchantment: tightly-wound Cogsworth the clock (voiced by Sir Ian McKellen), sentimental teapot Mrs. Potts (Emma Thompson), kind-hearted candlestick Lumiere (Ewan McGregor) feather-duster Plumette (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and the opera-singing Wardrobe (Audra MacDonald).

"Beauty and the Beast" hits theaters in March 2017, and we officially can't wait!