Earlier in the month, John Lasseter took to stage in London to unveil a host of fresh Disney/Pixar announcements, among them the news that Mandy Moore would voice Rapunzel in a new Walt Disney Animation Studios adaptation of the Grimm fairytale. So when RT sat down with Moore, currently in London shooting Swinging with the Finkels with Melissa George and Martin Freeman, we couldn't resist asking about the project and its take on the classic fairytale.

"She's definitely the quintessential sassy, young Disney heroine," Moore told us. "She's a bit of a spitfire too, and a very curious young woman. She's really curious about the world she's never really seen and she's coming into her own."

Rapunzel, first published in 1812, tells of the titular long-haired young girl shut away high in a tower in the middle of the woods with no way out and only one window onto the outside world. When a prince comes, she unfurls her locks to allow him to climb into the tower. Chuck star Zachary Levi will play the prince in Disney's CG-animated take, due for release in 2010.

"I've done a little bit of work already," Moore said, "but the bulk of it I'll start when I get back home. It's a lot of fun. And there's music involved; really great music."

For Moore, the opportunity to play a Disney princess was one to be leapt at. "It's just so cool to be added to such great lineage," she said. "I'm going to be a Disney princess! I grew up watching Disney films and singing The Little Mermaid. It's hard to wrap my head around [the fact] that I'll be following suit.

"When the opportunity came up to audition I remember thinking, 'I'm probably not going to get something like this but I'll go up for it. I'm sure I'll be one of many.' It was one of those things that you didn't necessarily think much of. You just think 'What are the chances?' So it was a very nice surprise."

The actress is looking forward to a relatively new challenge for the film -- providing the voice for an animated character as opposed to a live action performance. "There's a lot of imagination that goes into doing an animated film, and this really is my first proper, proper one," she told RT. "It's a lot more draining than you expect. I'm sure you figure, you show up in whatever you're wearing and you don't have to be all made up and there's no waiting around. I think because there's so much that has to take place in your mind, there's so much to imagine. And a lot of the time you're not reading with anyone. It can be taxing in a different way than sitting around waiting all day on a set."

Rapunzel is penciled in for a release on 10th December 2010.