Variety
Cinderella’s So-Called Evil Sisters Shine in Netflix Title ‘Steps,’ Sneak Peeked at Annecy
By Kevin Giraud
June 23, 2026
Mister D: Why did I get a migraine after reading this? Uh-Oh!
Annecy for Netflix is underway! The first panel took place on the morning of Tuesday, June 23rd, and we got an extended deep-dive into the world of Steps, Netflix’s upcoming feature film set to release in the back half of 2026. We’ve already seen a fair bit of the movie thanks to stills and casting reveals, but we got a bit more about the philosophy of the film, how it came to be, and more courtesy of Alyce Tzue (Director), John Ripa (Director), Dan Casey (Art Director), Jason Figliozzi (Head of Character Animation), and Denis Walgenwitz (Moderator). Here’s what we learned!
The film has been a long time in the making—par for the course for these big animated features (with this one, according to the team, having a runtime of about 92 minutes)—with the official greenlight coming back in November 2020. Paper Kite Films had reportedly been working on it long before it landed at Netflix and is a landmark release given it’s the first exclusively from Netflix Animation Studios.
If you think you know the story of Cinderella, think again. The creators made it very clear that this is a reimagining focused on the oft-maligned stepsisters. The title itself represents a fresh take: “Our movie is called Steps, and it’s short for stepsisters. Yes, the ones in the Cinderella story, but it also stands for stepfamily, or any relationship really where you weren’t together afterward, but you’re together now.”
Warning: There are some potential mild spoilers for the film throughout.
The creators made it very clear that this is a reimagining focused on the oft-maligned stepsisters. The title itself represents a fresh take: “Our movie is called Steps, and it’s short for stepsisters. Yes, the ones in the Cinderella story, but it also stands for stepfamily, or any relationship really where you weren’t together afterward, but you’re together now.”
The story follows Cinderella and one of her so-called “evil” stepsisters, Lilith, an Asian immigrant to a Western kingdom called Alouette.
“Lilith and Cindy are two very different people,” Figliozzi revealed. “And when Lilith, sick of living under Cinderella’s perfect little shadow, steals the fairy godmother’s wand, she breaks the Cinderella story.”
From there, the two opposites are forced to work together, venturing out into a wild world—including a location dubbed “Troll Town” populated by giant biker trolls—to save the kingdom. As the directors put it: “Nobody is fully good or fully evil, and we had to rebel against archetypes to tell a story about real, layered women.”
Throughout the presentation, each character was fleshed out, with further details given about who voices them and what they bring to the role. As a reminder, with a bit more revealed about each character, here’s who you can expect to hear.
First, it’s worth noting that each character was designed with the express intention of having unique characteristics. According to Tzue, this was inspired by a 2015 Tumblr post by Bright Darkly (we could only find a Boing Boing article with the same pictures), which pointed out the long-standing animation trend in which female characters often just “look like baby aliens” compared to their male counterparts, which were much more varied in style. The filmmakers deliberately broke the mold by giving their female cast “very non-human” face shape guides to ensure a fun, expressive variety.
Lilith (Ali Wong)
Lilith is the movie’s main protagonist and the catalyst for flipping the fairy tale upside down. Described as a “gothy, punk rebel,” the creators explained that “Lilith is an Asian immigrant to a Western fairy tale kingdom called Alouette. Lilith quickly finds that she does not fit in at all, unlike her stepsister, Cinderella.”
The filmmakers revealed they designed her head to be “shaped like a martini glass” and noted that “Lilith is our charismatic truth-teller who’s hilarious and sharp-witted, who hides a desperate need to be accepted behind her spiky armor.”
To bring her to life, they turned to “the one and only comedian Ali Wong,” who “played an essential role in helping us to craft the hilarious and witty tone of her character.” Ultimately, they “had to rebel against archetypes to tell a story about real, layered women, and Lilith would be the one to land that message, that everyone just wants to belong.”
Cinderella (Amanda Seyfried)
Our classic princess gets a grounded, emotional update. “Cinderella is pretty much the poster child of our kingdom,” the team shared. “She’s just pure perfection, beautiful, humble, with the voice of an angel. And our Cinderella even likes to sing.”
However, they quickly pointed out that “Cinderella isn’t perfect. They’re each complicated in very real, very human ways.” After experimenting with making her a bloodthirsty action hero, the creators realized, “our character is someone who has dealt with tremendous loss, who cleans and smiles through the pain to make everyone around her feel comfortable. Like Lilith, she’s also someone who wants to feel loved, to belong.” Amanda Seyfried steps into the iconic glass slippers, as she “brought such a sense of humanity to this iconic character.”
Margo (Stephanie Hsu)
Voiced by Stephanie Hsu, Margo is the third stepsister and arguably the emotional core of the film, per the creators, but we still don’t have a publicly released first look. “Margo is really the movie’s heart and moral compass,” the filmmakers noted. “Her dream is for her two sisters to just be sisters and love each other. What we love most about Margo is that she’s joyfully and unfashionably herself.”
With a head shaped “like a lima bean,” Margo ends up cursed to live life as an amphibious frog in multiple different stages. “She also gets turned into the world’s cutest frog,” which raises the stakes for the story because “we discover that the longer she’s a frog, the more she loses who she is, what makes her human.” For the animators, Margo Frog was an absolute joy to build: “She’s essentially a bouncing ball with eyes, arms, and legs. And you’d be surprised with how much you can do with just that.”
Priscilla (Nikki Glaser)
Every fairy tale needs a great antagonist, and with the latest casting addition, Steps delivers with Priscilla, voiced by Nikki Glaser. “Priscilla is ambitious, razor sharp, and her life’s dream is to become Princess of Alouette,” John Ripa teased.
But her villainy comes from a place of neglect: “Priscilla is being raised by a male governess because her absentee parents couldn’t be bothered to raise her. Priscilla equates attention with love, and anyone who steals her spotlight winds up in her crosshairs.” As for her design, the creators “leaned into a heavily Y2K feel, which ultimately gave us our Marie Antoinette meets Paris Hilton vibe. And you can see she’s definitely earning the title of our little diva.”
Fairy Godmother
For this iconic character, who has been seen in many iterations over the years, the creators “wanted [their] version to feel funny, weird, and honest in ways we hadn’t seen before in movies,” resulting in “a headstrong motor mouth with a very full sensual calendar who is writing what she believes to be the greatest fairy tale of all time, the Cinderella story.”
Her aesthetic was brilliantly described by the filmmakers: “This is a woman totally obsessed with destiny, true love, and the power of the cosmos. So it was no surprise to us that her aesthetic basically became horoscope girl meets forest witch.” In terms of personality and animation, “She’s clearly a Scorpio sun, a Taurus moon… She’s funny, whimsical, fluttery, just like a hummingbird.”
Jeff (with a G)
Another character who has yet to be revealed to the public is one of the trolls. When Lilith enters “Troll Town,” she meets Geff, who pilots a terrifying mechanical monster. But there’s a twist: “He might seem like a towering, handsome guy, but among the trolls, he’s actually a runt. He’s also a sensitive artist, and to the other trolls, that makes him weak.”
Because he feels like an outcast, “Geff is also someone who doesn’t belong, who uses a literal monster as a defense mechanism. Guess who relates to that? Lilith. She likes him very, very much. He is Lilith’s love interest. So we had to make Jeff both layered and extremely hot… And the best thing is that he’s so unaware that he’s hot.”
Roderick
Acting as Priscilla’s muscle and caretaker is Roderick, a hilariously terrifying male governess. The filmmakers summed up his vibe perfectly: “he’s kind of like a combination of The Terminator meets Mary Poppins.” When the Cinderella story breaks, Roderick goes on the offensive. “Quite literally here, like the T-1000 from Terminator, he’s intense, merciless, and extremely protective of Priscilla.”
A “Delectable” Animation Style
Netflix Animation has been pushing boundaries with unique 3D visual styles (The Sea Beast, Nimona), and Steps is continuing that trend. The creators modeled the kingdom of Alouette after the 18th-century pre-revolutionary French Rococo, a notoriously hard style to emulate in animation.
To make the world stand out, the animation team leaned into what they call “tactile textures and elegant clutter,” using a miniature, dollhouse scale. In fact, much of the world is literally built out of digital food! “We also wanted to lean into 3D as its own artistic medium,” Tzue explained. “We made clocks out of taffy, pots out of flan, and trays out of chocolate, all in service of creating a touchable, delectable world.”
