Orlando actor stars as Hades in Disney's Descendants: The Rise of Red

Anthony Pyatt grew up in the shadow of Walt Disney World, and now the actor has found a hot role in the hit Disney film The “Descendants” film franchise.

A graduate of Lake Howell High School in Winter Park, Pyatt plays a younger version of Hades, the fiery blue-haired villain from Disney’s “Hercules,” in “Descendants: Rise of Red.” The fourth film in the series, which centers on the teenage children of Disney villains, will debut July 12 on the Disney+ streaming service and on Disney Channel in August.

“I feel like my whole life has taken a new direction,” says Pyatt, who is looking forward to attending the Hollywood premiere with his girlfriend and two best friends. He’ll be reunited with co-stars he hasn’t seen since filming wrapped in March 2023.

Although he has made other television appearances before, including an episode of the ABC sitcom “Will Trent,” this role seems to be a big breakout. It's certainly his most high-profile project.

“I’ve always had a passion for television and film since I was a kid,” says Pyatt, whose professional training includes classes at Circle in the Square Theatre School in New York and ClassAct Studios in Orlando.

He is well aware that success follows its own timetable.

“It can seem so out of reach,” he says. “It’s never going to happen when you want it to.”

He hopes his role in “Rise of Red” will give his career a new boost – and there are already signs of that: He's just booked another guest appearance on a TV show that begins filming in a few months.

Pyatt finds he enjoys experimenting with a variety of roles.

“I'm much more interested in being a working actor than being famous,” he says.

But what's interesting is that his latest goal puts him at the forefront of the scene.

“My unrealistic dream is to be in one of the productions of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” he says. He finds the combination of storytelling and directing, with live magic on stage, irresistible.

“Oh, this is what I work for,” he remembers thinking when he first saw the show, which won a Tony Award for best play. And while movie special effects can be impressive, live stage effects are thrilling.

“It had a different effect on me,” he says of the magic of “Harry Potter.” “It sent chills down my spine.”

The interest in theater will come as no surprise to Central Florida residents who remember Pyatt in notable roles at the Orlando Fringe Festival, Mad Cow Theatre, Garden Theatre, Beth Marshall Presents' Play-in-a-Day and Orlando Family Stage (then called Orlando Repertory Theatre), among others.

He's played everything from the tortured, torturing villain at the center of A Clockwork Orange to the nostalgic narrator of The Glass Menagerie.

Pyatt has twice been honored in the Orlando Sentinel’s annual critics’ list, which honors the year’s best plays. In 2017, he won best lead actor in a musical for Orlando Rep’s “Newsies,” in which he was described as “enthrallingly captivating” as the idealistic newsboy Jack. Then in 2019, he won best lead actor in a comedy for playing both a docile teenager and the satanic puppet that takes control of him in Mad Cow Theatre’s “Hand to God.”

In my review at the time, I wrote that Pyatt was “bubbling with intensity.”

This doesn't surprise him.

“I was considered an intense guy,” he said. “If you needed a young man who could be moody, scream or cry, I was your guy.”

Like many Orlando residents, Pyatt found work at amusement parks and theme parks. He worked at Capone's Dinner & Show in Kissimmee and had several roles at Universal Orlando, where you can still find him.

Surprisingly, given his role in “Descendants,” he never worked at Walt Disney World — though he remembers going “maybe once a year or every other year, like for my birthday.”

“Disney played a big role in my upbringing,” he says, especially when it came to family movie nights with films ranging from classics like “The Aristocats” to new Pixar movies.

“We would order pizza and watch movies at home,” Pyatt says. “Wall-E was a big hit in my house.”

He remembers “Hercules” as “a sweet childhood memory, and now it's relevant again.”

The animated version of his live-action role blew him away from the first viewing.

“I had never seen a villain like Hades,” he recalls.[Hades voice actor] James Woods was so cheeky.

The film also influenced his musical tastes, giving him a new interest in gospel and R&B.

“It was after that movie that I got into this kind of music,” he says. “When the Muses started singing ‘The Gospel Truth,’ it woke something up in me.”

Orlando Family Stage Launches Next Stage Endowment, Returns Puppets to Schools

His journey to “Descendants: The Rise of Red” began in Orlando, first with online video auditions from home and then, once casting was complete, with a wig fitting. A stylist came to his home and measured his head and hairline for the distinctive wig.

“I remember the day I first wore it [on set]“My partners were like, ‘Oh, he’s here. Hades has arrived,’” he recalls. “I felt cool.”

Then he laughed.

“I felt bigger.”

The musical tells the story of Red, the daughter of the Queen of Hearts, who teams up with Chloe, the daughter of Cinderella. To right a wrong done to the Queen, the two travel back in time, where they encounter younger versions of Disney villains such as Captain Hook, Maleficent, and Hades, played by Pyatt.

“You’re going to see the brash, fiery bad boy that everyone wants Hades to be,” he says of his character.

The actors rehearsed for about a month — “We wanted these dance numbers to be beautiful and precise,” Pyatt says — then filmed in Georgia for about two more months.

Having lived in New York and Los Angeles at different times, the irony of finding his biggest screen role to date so close to home was not lost on him.

“If someone had said to me, 'You'll have your first big project in Orlando,' I would have said, 'No way,'” he said.

He understands why the “Descendants” films have proven not only entertaining through singing and dancing, but also enduring.

“There’s a lot of family, friendship and love,” he says of the stories. “The films show that there’s heart and humanity even in those you don’t understand.”[…]They really touch a lot of people. I'm so happy to be a part of that.”

Follow me at facebook.com/matthew.j.palm or email me at [email protected]. Find more art news at OrlandoSentinel.com/entertainment.