Sam Riley Reveals Secrets of Maleficent: Behind-the-Scenes Fun!

[MUSIC PLAYING] Sam, hello. Welcome to Miami. Thank you. How are you doing? Marvelous. Incredible movie you have with Disney, "Maleficent." Tell me who you are in this movie. What's your character's name, and who is he? My name in the movie is Maleficent. - That's a good start. My name is Diaval and in the original movie, Maleficent always had a raven on her arm or on her staff.

And they've developed this character, fortunately for me. She rescues me as a raven, turns me into a human, and saves my life. So I swear allegiance to her. And I become her spy and her confidante and she can turn me into anything she likes, the click of a finger. - With your character changing to different, from a raven to possibly a dragon and more, what was your favorite that you liked turning into?

- The human. [laughing] - The horse was pretty amazing, 'cause there was a horse there that they sort of, they built this suit of feathers for, and that was really beautiful to see. I mean, it was a beautiful horse anyway, but it had half a beak and everything. - I loved how your makeup really kind of made you look like a raven when you were a human.

I think they did a great job and it kind of brought you into that you were still an animal, even though you were popped into a man different times. And you become more of her, not just sidekick, but kind of her conscience to a point. - I think that came with the time that, you know, at the beginning he's terrified of anybody that could turn him into whatever she likes, you know.

But over the years, you know, he has an incredible, you know, a strong connection and affection for Aurora as a baby, and he watches her grow up every day for 16 years, and he spends every day with Maleficent for 16 years, so what was fun in playing the scenes with Angie was we talked about, well, if they spend every single day with each other for 16 years, they're gonna get on each other's nerves a little bit, and we bicker, and also I see that this front that she has this cold, icy front.

There's, you know, I see the cracks in it over the years as well, and with a bit more courage, I start to point them out to her. - And with working with Angélie and Elle Fanning, did anyone do any special pranks on the set? Anyone was the jokester when you had to do more serious scenes, just to make it a little lighter? - Well, most of our scenes were fairly light.

I mean, I think I'm sworn to secrecy on money details, but Charlto and her had a sort of prank battle. But you don't wanna start pranking somebody with the sort of funds and connections that somebody like Angelina Jolie has. He lost. - Oh, that's interesting. - He lost big time. but I'm not really allowed to say, I was speaking to him the other day, he didn't want me to say anything.

- That's okay. - I thought he was stupid to even try and mess with her, really. - What was your favorite part of filming this movie? - I mean, it was a lot of fun every day, really, going to such an, all these incredible sets every day, but I guess one of the highlights was when my mom and dad came to visit the set because they'd, you know, when I was a teenager, I didn't start acting really until I was 26 or something.

So I'd given them a few stresses over the years. So it was nice to be able to, you know, I drove 'em around the set in a golf buggy and introduced them to Angelina. And it was very, you know, it was a treat to see them. - Like surreal? - Yeah, they floated back home afterwards, I think. Is this one of your favorite Disney tales when you were growing up?

I was more of a jungle book. I was Mowgli when I was little. But now obviously it's one of my favorites. That's awesome. Well I wish you all the best and I just want to let you know that we're counting you down on our movie hype countdown clock. So this is counting you down. How many hours have I got? It's seven days, so nine hours, forty minutes and forty-two seconds.

So we're following you on there. So I just wanted to show everybody you're on there. Thank you very much. Best of luck. That's going to be the first time I get to see it. Awesome. Thank you so much. Take care. [BLANK_AUDIO]