But who could play the new Giselle as, like, the nicest, most innocent girl ever? Around the middle of 2005, Adams joined a throng of 200 or so actresses who auditioned for the role. Although she was enjoying acclaim at the time for playing a ditsy yet soulful Southerner in the indie drama Junebug (which earned her an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actress), she was hardly a box office name. Still, she managed to project a quality almost none of the other candidates had: complete sincerity. ''She's filled with joy,'' says Lima. ''I didn't have to do any work to direct her.''
Dempsey, newly hot from Grey's Anatomy (a hugely profitable show for Disney-owned ABC), signed on by January '06 and agreed to film Enchanted while on hiatus between seasons 2 and 3. He had little time to rehearse, but since he barely had to sing in Enchanted, that wasn't a major problem. Adams, however, undertook intensive voice lessons for the movie's two big musical numbers, written by longtime Disney vets Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz (Pocahontas). She was determined not to let Lima hire a professional singer to dub in Giselle's songs, as animated-musical directors have sometimes done in the past.
Adams succeeded, although at a cost: The actress suspects she'll never get the movie's key tunes out of her head — and neither will audiences. ''I apologize now,'' she jokes, citing a catchy Central Park sing-along about true love called ''That's How You Know'' and a spoofy, gross-out ditty titled ''Happy Working Song,'' in which Giselle does the Snow White cleanup thing at Robert's messy apartment, aided by rats, pigeons, and Joe's Apartment-like roaches. Audiences at early sneak peeks have been groaning on cue at one shot of bugs pouring out of a drain to scour the bathtub, and that was the plan. Says visual-effects producer Blondel Aidoo, ''It's something for the kids to say, Ewwwwww!''
If anyone can make a scene like that charming instead of revolting, it's probably Adams. Clips of her in action suggest she's well cast, and her chemistry with Dempsey is hard to deny. Of course, if it clicks too well, Adams could be stuck playing naive-ingenue parts for years and hearing kids yell the name Giselle for the rest of her life. But the actress isn't worried. ''I think when I'm not in the dress and the wig, people won't recognize me,'' she says. Sarandon, meanwhile, would embrace the fame, at least on her character's behalf. ''What I really want,'' she says, ''is to see lots of drag queens show up as Narissa in [New York City's] Halloween Parade. Always a good indication that something has entered the psyche of the culture.'' Cue the chorus of Giselle's song ''That's How You Know.''
Additional reporting by Lindsay Soll
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