Picture Credits: Netflix
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.
How the creators approached tackling the iconic fairytale
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.”
Who is in the voice cast, and what are their design philosophies?
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.”
Picture Credits: Getty Images / Netflix
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.”
Picture Credits: Getty Images / Netflix
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.”
Picture Credits: Netflix / Getty Images
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.”
Cr: Netflix Animation © 2026
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.”
Picture Credit: Netflix
Creating “Wonk” and Physics-Defying Costumes
Beyond just making the world look edible, the animation team put a heavy emphasis on making the 3D space feel handcrafted. To fully achieve that cozy, lived-in dollhouse feel, which Dan Casey explained was “painstakingly enlarged details and imperfections, or what we call wonk, until everything felt like a small, tiny collectible.”
Because they wanted to highlight elements of women’s fashion that are often overlooked, costumes play a massive role in the film’s visual storytelling—particularly when it comes to Character FX (CFX). The team showed off tests of how Cinderella’s wardrobe physically moves to reflect her relationship with magic. Her everyday yellow dress uses “sturdy, clean, and bright” fabric, while her Fairy Godmother-granted gown is inspired by flowers, where “you can see the petals floating a bit, resisting physics.” When the magic breaks, the fabric physically changes again, becoming “much thinner” as she returns to wearing rags.
Motor Goats and Unique Locomotion
The animation team also faced some incredibly unique locomotion challenges. As outlined above, a major philosophy for the character animators was that “no one walks the same.” This was especially vital for Margo, who transforms into a frog. The team had to capture her specific human personality in her adult stride and magically translate that exact same bouncy walk cycle into her frog form.
Meanwhile, outside the elegant Rococo curves of Alouette lies the “stark, jagged vertical lines of nature” in Troll Town. To bring this wild, maximalist area to life, the team designed a bespoke troll language, a massive creature-like mech piloted by Geff, and, perhaps most hilariously, “motor goats.” Because what else would a ten-foot-tall biker gang of trolls use as their primary mode of transportation? The animators showcased hilarious sound-mixed tests where the trolls physically revved up the goats like actual motorbikes!
Is Steps a Musical?
Given the fairy-tale roots, many fans have been wondering if Steps will feature musical numbers. The answer is yes… and no.
When asked if the film is a musical, the director clarified: “It actually did start as a musical. It has evolved a lot as you all can tell in six years. It is very music-driven now. It’s not necessarily a movie where all the characters break out into song, but we have incredible original music and needle drops that really also reflect the characters deeply.” There are no exact details on the music just yet (though we hear there might be some songs sung by the characters), although the team said they’re excited to reveal more in the future.
Picture Credit: Kasey Moore / What’s on Netflix
The Theatrical and AI Questions
It wouldn’t be a Netflix or an animation panel without two of the favorite recurring questions.
One specifically for Netflix is naturally the big theatrical question mark. While Netflix has increasingly experimented with theatrical releases (albeit mostly in the form of stunts), the team behind Steps confirmed that this one will be skipping the multiplexes. When asked bluntly if there would be a worldwide theatrical release, the team kept it simple: “Yeah, it’s Netflix. It’s going to go right to streaming by the end of the year.”
An audience member later pressed them on this, asking if they were a bit disappointed by the decision, given how beautiful the movie looks. However, the filmmakers looked to the bright side of releasing first and exclusively on Netflix, leaning into the sheer scale of the platform’s global reach. John Ripa diplomatically said:
It is nice to see it on the big screen. But I would say, for me, this was the first film I’ve done with streaming, and I’m actually really excited about it. I mean, Netflix can reach so many people all over the world, like, right at once, and for that to be kind of available, when you make a film like this, and you go through six years of making it, you put your heart and your passion, you put everything into it, and you just kind of want to get it out there and be seen by as many people as possible, you know, because you feel strongly about what you did, and you have something that you really wanted to say.
They capped off the theatrical question by adding: “And so, I’m really excited about it kind of going out, and for the world really to see it, especially like, all at once, bam, there it is.”
Then came the other elephant in the modern animation room: Artificial Intelligence. An attendee asked a question that’s dominated Annecy for the past few years: “What’s the place of artificial intelligence in that movie, and is there a place for that in it?”
The team was quick to shut down any notion of AI involvement, instead championing the massive, human crew that spent over half a decade bringing Steps to life. “I saw there were thousands and thousands of artists that worked on it, and so this is very much a human, artist-driven movie,” Alyce Tzue stated proudly. “And all credit really goes to them.”
Thoughts And First Impressions
These types of sessions are always revealing, as what you see in the final product has passed through hundreds of artists’ hands and undergone many iterations, and that seems to especially be the case here. Just like Swapped from earlier this year, the lighting particularly stands out to me as one of the things that bring the animation to life. That’s followed closely by the incredible facial expressions, which were showcased for most characters throughout. Lilith, in particular, is very expressive, and that’s aided by the initial lines we got to hear from Ali Wong.
I got a lot of vibes from past projects, particularly Disney’s, while watching what was on offer. Some of the decisions around making the environment resemble food instantly took me to Wreck-It Ralph. Naturally, given the crossover in characters and world, it’ll no doubt draw comparisons to Shrek 2. It’s also hard not to draw comparisons to Frozen, given the themes, characters, and lavish costumes.
The humor may not be to everyone’s taste, as it comes across with a particular flavor of teen angst and edge, but given the target audience, I suspect that won’t be a problem for most.
Picture Credit: Kasey Moore / What’s on Netflix
We’re expecting more Steps coverage later this week, with hopefully some new first looks. Stay tuned to our live Annecy 2026 blog for the latest.
Are you excited to check out Steps on Netflix later this year? Let us know in the comments down below!
