Forget James Corden, James Acaster in ‘Cinderella’ Is the Only James I Care About

You may have heard any number of things about late-night host James Corden’s role in the new Cinderella movie on Amazon—that he needs to stop being in movie musicals, that he halted traffic with a flash mob to promote the film, and that the entire project was his idea, just to name a few. But with all this talk about James Corden in Cinderella, we’ve overlooked a very important James-related Cinderella topic: Comedian James Acaster in Cinderella.

If you’ve never heard of James Acaster, you may recognize him if you’ve ever seen the meme image of a contestant on The Great British Bake Off who “started making it, had a breakdown. Bon appétit.” He is, in fact, a stand-up comedian with several specials available to watch online, including 2018’s Repertoire on Netflix and 2021’s Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999 on Vimeo. But Cinderella marks the first time Acaster has appeared in a movie, and what a movie it is. Acaster plays one of three mice-turned-footmen, and much like he gave his audiences the inside scoop on his Bake Off appearance in Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999, I cannot wait to discover what sort of ripe material Acaster will mine from this Hollywood adventure.

For the record, this reporter enjoyed Cinderella far more than the average film critic. But there’s no denying that Kay Cannon’s musical comedy is fairly ridiculous. In fact, that’s the point—its over-the-top, absurdist humor is reminiscent of the 1984 comedy Top Secret! Acaster’s role in the film is no exception to this goofiness. He first appears as the voice of a CGI mouse named John, alongside two other mice voiced by James Corden and Romesh Ranganathan. (Both Corden and Ranganathan play mice who are named after them, but apparently Acaster, the less famous James, was relegated to “John.”) These mice say things like “Here comes our girl—hoo boy, she’s got heavy feet!”

But the real fun begins when the mice are transformed into human footmen by the fairy godparent, Fab G (played by Billy Porter). Then you get Corden, Ranganathan, and Acaster in the flesh, and while Corden gets the vast majority of the punch lines, my eye was always drawn to Acaster. If you’ve ever watched any of Acaster’s stand-up, you know he’s not a particularly bubbly, positive guy. His comedy tends to be more “self-deprecating anxiety spirals” rather than “sparkly fairytale” vibes. So to see him in a lavish gold jacket with a silk ascot, singing and dancing to Earth, Wind & Fire’s hit song “Shining Star” is absolutely delightful.

This is not to say that Acaster doesn’t make his nervous persona work for the part. After all, he is a mouse-turned-human—some awkwardness makes total sense, and only adds to the humor of Acaster’s scenes. Like, for instance, when Acaster does an adorable dance using only his fingers. Or when Acsater flinches at Corden shouting about how great it is to pee as a human man. Same! Relatable!

Sadly, Acaster’s screen time is fairly limited. This is a movie that also stars Camila Cabello, Idina Menzel, Minnie Driver, and Pierce Brosnan, after all. But while the Fifth Harmony stans will be celebrating Cabello’s feature film debut, and while the James Corden haters bemoan the late-night host, I’ll be quietly cheering on my boy James Acaster. I look forward to the behind-the-scenes scoop in the next comedy special.

Watch Cinderella on Amazon Prime