Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a classic of modern and old-time storytelling. The fairy tale was first published in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm, two famous German folklorists, in their collected works titled Grimm’s Fairy Tales. The story wasn’t finalized until 1854, the Dwarfs weren’t even given names until 1912, and they weren’t given the names we now know until the Disney animated version of the movie in 1937. But since the Brothers Grimm first published the story in 1812, Snow White has been adapted hundreds, possibly thousands of times. It’s a story that never gets old.

One of the most memorable adaptations is the 2012 live-action movie, Mirror Mirror, starring Lily Collins as Snow White and Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen. This adaptation of the story is a fantasy film and is only very loosely based on the fairy tale we all know. Mirror Mirror is very dark compared to most other adaptations of Snow White, as the Evil Queen’s main plan is to feed Snow White to a beast out in the woods. Snow White survives, however, and joins the Dwarfs in a revolution to depose the Evil Queen and bring back the rightful heir.

A movie this dark is bound to have a few dark secrets, and in this list, we will explore them all. Get ready to view Mirror Mirror in a different light, as we take a look back at the movie.

20 Under The Evil Queen's Dress

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In the movie, Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen wears lavishly huge ball gowns for her character’s costumes. What audiences didn’t know, is that Roberts hid her children underneath the ball gowns during takes without anyone knowing, even the crew!

This little dark fact will definitely change the way you view scenes with the Evil Queen in them.

Not only did Julia Roberts hide her children beneath her ball gowns without anyone knowing, she also then asked for her children to be removed from the set of the movie between takes after she decided she did not want them to hear her evil dialogue as the Evil Queen and become upset. Seeing as how her children were pretty young during the filming of Mirror Mirror, it is understandable why she would want them removed from the set.

19 Forever Young

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In Mirror Mirror, the Evil Queen endures a variety of treatments meant to keep her beautiful and make her look as young and fair as Snow White. These treatments include such things as putting fresh bird excrement on her face, placing maggots in her ear, making a chocolate mask for her face, a massage by live snakes, snail slime, fishes that supposedly eat dead skin cells, bees stinging her lips to make them look plumper, and even a sting by a scorpion, one of the most painful stings there are!

These treatments actually have a basis in reality.

In spas all over the world, these treatments are actually done in real life to real people! The only one that isn’t based on a real beauty treatment is the bee stings on the Evil Queen’s lips. I don’t think I’ll ever be desperate enough to try these myself, however.

18 Loss Of The Designer

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Another dark secret that many people don’t realize about Mirror Mirror is that it was the final movie of the famed costume designer, Eiko Ishioka, before her passing at the age of 73. Ishioka was a designer for stage plays, advertising, print media, and feature films. Her big break came when she was hired to design for the Japanese boutique brand, Parco.

Eiko Ishioka passed of pancreatic cancer on January 21, 2012. She never got to see the finished movie.

Some other films she designed for include Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), The Cell (2000), The Fall (2006), and Immortals (2011). Ishioka married her long-time companion Nicholas Soultanakis just a few months before her passing. Mirror Mirror was also nominated for Best Costume Design at the Academy Awards, due to Ishioka’s work.

17 Smooth As Silk

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Somewhat of a comical secret about Mirror Mirror came about due to the actor Armie Hammer, who played the Prince in the movie, and Snow White’s love interest. The original script included a scene in which Hammer, as the Prince, hangs upside down and the Evil Queen, played by Julia Roberts, remarks at how smooth and hairless his chest is. Unfortunately, Hammer’s chest was anything but smooth, as he had quite a bit of chest hair.

The director told Hammer that he would have to shave his chest hair to better fit the written line of dialogue.

Armie Hammer flat out refused to shave his chest hair, complaining that he had been growing it out for over twenty-five years. Luckily for him, the director relented and changed the line so that he could keep his hairy chest.

16 That's Gotta Hurt!

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Mirror Mirror is a bit more action-packed than most adaptations of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The director added action scenes to make the movie more of an action fantasy blockbuster. In one scene, the Evil Queen attacks Snow White and pulls her hair. What audiences didn’t realize was that during filming, Julia Roberts accidentally pulled out some of Lily Collins’ real hair!

The hair pulling was accidental, but the take where it happened was used for the final cut of the movie.

During the filming of the scene, Lily Collins got her foot stuck in her dress and ended up in the wrong location for what the director had in mind. Julia Roberts didn’t notice that anything was amiss, and went on with the scene with the same speed and force, pulling out Lily Collins’ hair.

15 The Untitled Snow White Project

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Another secret that is generally not known by most people who have seen Mirror Mirror is that the director, Tarsem Singh, was unhappy with the movie being titled Mirror Mirror. While it was in production, the movie was simply titled The Untitled Snow White Project (which is much cleverer if you ask me). Singh wished to have a title similar to Disney’s Tangled or Frozen, and simply title the movie Snow.

Tarsem Singh made it clear that he was disappointed the studio changed the title of the movie to Mirror Mirror.

Some other movies that Tarsem Singh has directed include The Cell (2000), The Fall (2006), Immortals (2011), and Self/less(2015). Singh wanted to make a family-friendly action-comedy with a simple, easy-to-remember title. Unfortunately for him, the studio had other ideas.

14 A Lead Didn't Even Want To Do The Movie

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One dark secret that actress Julia Roberts probably doesn’t want to get out about Mirror Mirror is that she initially hated the movie! When she got the script for the movie as a pitch for her to play the Evil Queen character, she thought it was a terrible idea and was one thousand percent against the movie and playing the Evil Queen.

Only a meeting with director Tarsem Singh changed her mind.

After Roberts met with the director of the movie, Tarsem Singh, she completely changed her attitude. She was such a big fan of the director’s previous work that she decided to join the cast purely because he was directing it! It’s always embarrassing for an actor or actress when word gets out that they didn’t have faith in a movie. And I have a feeling this is no different.

13 What A Coincidence!

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Coincidences happen in movies all the time, and Mirror Mirror is no different. Lily Collins actually auditioned for the role of Snow White in another 2012 adaptation called Snow White and the Huntsman.

However, she lost out on this role to Kristen Stewart of Twilight fame.

Sam Claflin, an English actor, auditioned for the role of the Prince in Mirror Mirror but lost out on the role to Armie Hammer. Claflin was then cast as the Prince in the other adaptation, Snow White and the Huntsman. Multiple actors auditioning for roles in both adaptations, being rejected, and then cast in the other adaptation is quite interesting. Lily Collins and Sam Claflin then went on to co-star together in the 2014 movie Love, Rosie. So many coincidences!

12 Loose Lips...

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During a scene at the beginning of the movie, the Evil Queen is playing a game of chess with her assistant Brighton, played by Nathan Lane. During the game of chess, she utters the phrase “loose lips sink ships.” This saying actually has quite a dark origin.

The phrase originates from Britain during World War II.

It actually originates from British soldiers regarding the routes their secret ship convoys were taking through the Atlantic Ocean. The German army had spies trying to infiltrate the British, so if a British soldier was not careful to whom he was speaking, a German spy may have learned the route of the ship and related it to the German army, who would then sink the ship. Quite a dark reference for a family-friendly movie.

11 Who Is The Old Hag?

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One interesting secret that many fans of the Snow White story may not know about, is the tradition of the actress who plays the Evil Queen character to also play the Old Hag character at the end of the film. Spoiler alert! This is because the Old Hag is actually the Evil Queen in disguise, trying to trick Snow White into eating a poisoned apple.

Julia Roberts also took part in this secret tradition.

The studio wanted this little secret to remain hidden from the audience during the film’s marketing, so they kept pictures of Roberts as the Old Hag under lock and key. However, director Tarsem Singh accidentally let the secret slip before the movie came out, making the producers’ efforts all for nothing. How embarrassing!

10 Ripping And Pulling

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As stated earlier in this list, the character of the Evil Queen played by Julia Roberts wore many huge, lavish ball gowns during the movie. The ball gowns she wore were so big, that they were incredibly heavy and Julia Roberts found it almost impossible to move around in them. You can imagine that this would make filming an action movie very difficult.

These heavy ball gowns caused Julia Roberts to actually sustain an injury on set.

During one scene, Roberts has to turn and quickly look at her co-star, actor Nathan Lane. During this scene, she turned so hard and the ball gown was so heavy, that she ended up pulling a muscle, and filming had to be stopped. Roberts immediately knew she was injured, as it had felt like she had ripped something inside of her. Talk about dark!

9 The Irish Snow White

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One interesting dark fact about Mirror Mirror is that Lily Collins wasn’t always the one pegged to play Snow White in the movie. Another actress, Saoirse Ronan, was considered for the role before Collins. Ronan is an Irish-American actress who has starred in many films including Atonement (2007), The Lovely Bones (2009), The Secret World of Arrietty (2010), The Host (2013), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Muppets Most Wanted (2014), and Ladybird (2017).

Saoirse Ronan was rejected for the role, however, due to the age gap between her and Armie Hammer.

Armie Hammer, who played Snow White’s love interest the Prince, was 26 at the time Mirror Mirror was being filmed. Ronan however, would have only been 17 at the time of filming, making their on-screen romance a little too creepy for a family-friendly audience.

8 Three's Company

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As stated earlier in this article, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has been adapted hundreds, if not thousands of times. And in all of those adaptations, Mirror Mirror is different in one very distinct way. The relationship between the Prince and Snow White.

The Prince has a romantic relationship with Snow White, as well as the Evil Queen.

Mirror Mirror is the only adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale to feature a romantic relationship between the Prince and Snow White, as well as between the Prince and the Evil Queen. It seems crazy that this movie would be the first adaptation to delve into the multi-relationship territory for the Prince character. But it’s true! Armie Hammer, who played the Prince, truly is a lucky man.

7 Magic Mirror...?

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One very interesting fact is that the title, Mirror Mirror, supposedly comes from a line from the Disney animated version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which came out in 1937. The line occurs when the Evil Queen asks the Magic Mirror the following question: “Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”

The Evil Queen wants the Mirror to say she is the fairest, but he actually says Snow White is the fairest of them all.

In reality, the Evil Queen in the Disney film never actually says the line this way. What she really says is this: “Magic mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” The title of Mirror Mirror is based on a line of dialogue that never actually existed! Now that’s an interesting secret!

6 Against The Prince

via MirrorMirrorMovie

During one scene in the movie, the Prince and Snow White have a sword fight. During this sword fight, Snow White uses her sword to try and slice open the Prince, however, he blocks her with his superior skills. If you look closely, however, the Prince actually missed the block.

If it was a sword fight in real life, the Prince would have been easily cut open.

This secret is probably just a slip up that happened in the editing of the movie. And not many people would notice the goof unless they were really watching the movie closely. But it is still an interesting fact that if this scene happened in real life, Snow White may have actually hurt the Prince! That’s not good.

5 The Strange Queen

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Another interesting secret about Julia Roberts and her role in Mirror Mirror once again has to do with her children. Believe it or not, Mirror Mirror is the very first movie that made her children realize just how big of a star the actress really is.

Roberts’ children were too young to have seen any of her previous movies.

Julia Roberts even forbade her children from seeing the movie as she felt it was much too disturbing for them to see. She did not want her children to associate her with her character of the Evil Queen. This just goes to show how good of an actress she is! She played the Evil Queen so well that her children would have been very frightened by it.

4 The Dark Dwarfs

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Probably the most famous characters in the story of Snow White, besides Snow White herself, are the Dwarfs. Most people know the Dwarfs from the animated Disney film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). In that movie, they were named Doc, Sleepy, Grumpy, Happy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Dopey. However, in Mirror Mirror they had very different names.

The names of the Dwarfs in Mirror Mirror are actually much darker than what we’re used to.

The Dwarfs’ names in this movie are Grimm, Butcher, Wolf, Napoleon, Half Pint, Grub, and Chuckles. These names definitely do not evoke the happy-go-lucky names from the Disney animated movie we all saw as children. And most of the names of the Dwarfs in Mirror Mirror have a very dark connotation.

3 Looky Looky, I've Got Hooky

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Julia Roberts is a treasure trove of interesting facts, and her role of the Evil Queen in Mirror Mirror has provided plenty of secrets. One such secret is that the Evil Queen is actually the second iconic fairy tale character she has played on the big screen.

Julia Roberts also played the role of Tinker Bell in the Peter Pan adaptation, Hook (1990).

Hook is about a grown-up Peter Pan who forgot that he was actually Peter Pan. Captain Hook comes to the real world to kidnap his children and force him to remember who he is. In this adaptation, Peter Pan was played by the late, great Robin Williams, and Captain Hook was played by Dustin Hoffman. The movie went on to be a huge box office success, and Julia Roberts’ fame grew along with it.

2 On Broadway...

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Mirror Mirror is full of references to other fairy tale adaptations. One such moment is when the Prince, played by Armie Hammer says the following line early on in the movie: “The trees are just wood.” This line has been seen as a reference to the Broadway musical, Into the Woods.

Into the Woods is one of the most famous Broadway musicals.

Into the Woods intertwines plots from several famous fairy tales, including Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and many others. The musical was created by Stephen Sondheim, a very famous artist and composer who is known for his many contributions to musical theater. It makes sense that Mirror Mirror would reference one of the most famous modern fairy tale stories of all time.

1 The Peacock Room

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One secret in Mirror Mirror that many people probably didn’t notice was in the Evil Queen’s room. There is a painted wall in the Evil Queen’s room that has many peacocks painted on it. These peacocks are actually perfect replicas of the peacocks painted by the famous artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler in his famous work, The Peacock Room, which he painted in 1876-1877.

The Peacock Room has been declared a masterpiece of interior decorative mural art.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American artist. He was active during the American Gilded Age. He was very well-known for his Peacock Room and it makes sense that a movie like Mirror Mirror would copy such splendor.