Ugly Stepsister Pretty Wonderful

Once upon a time, rising starlet Azura Skye received a phone call from her agent that she easily could have mistaken for a chat with her fairy godmother. "She said I'd been offered the lead in the Cinderella story — no audition or anything!" the 19-year-old tells TV Guide Online. "It was a huge deal... very flattering."

Then, the enchanting actress was informed that ABC's Wonderful World of Disney retelling (premiering Sunday night at 7 pm/ET) would be based on the Gregory Maguire novel Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. "At that point, it dawned on me that they didn't want me to play Cinderella, they wanted me for the ugly stepsister," she recalls, aghast. "They didn't even need to see me, they just knew I was her.

"I was like, 'Oh my God!'" she continues. "But I read the script, and it wasn't nearly as insulting as it sounds."

On the contrary, the girl-powered take on the classic tale is quick to observe that, while the title character's most attractive quality is her sharp mind, she also has a pretty face. However, even if Skye's historically misunderstood counterpart had been saddled with a mug that could shatter the mirror, mirror on the wall, she probably still would have had a ball doing her movie chores. In the end, she isn't really vain at all.

In fact, the 28 Days 12-stepper went for broke — appearances be damned — while shooting the upcoming feature Carolina, in which she plays Julia Stiles's wild-child sister. "I have a fabulous birthing scene where Shirley MacLaine shoves a dog biscuit in my mouth to bite on," she relates, laughing. "I look horrible — I'm sweating and my hair is stringy, but for some reason, it's my favorite shot. I get such a kick out of it."