Lowri May from Chilwell in Nottinghamshire felt a bit left out being the only one in her family needing to wear glasses. She also noticed that none of the magic heroines of the movies ever seemed to wear glasses, so when she was just nine years old she wrote to Disney even though she assumed that her letter would never be read.
“Unfortunately none of the princesses wear glasses and that makes me feel like I wasn’t beautiful enough,” she wrote. “So I hope you understand. Please may you make a Disney princess who has glasses? I think that by creating a princess that wears glasses and is not called a geek could help people to know that they are beautiful no matter what.”
Around the same time, Disney movie director Jared Bush was working on a new animated movie called Encanto. Set in Colombia it featured a magic land where everyone is given a superpower except for one little girl named Mirabel.
Jared read Lowri’s letter but could not reply – he would risk revealing the movie’s secret: that Mirabel wears glasses. So for three years, Lowri thought her letter had been forgotten.
Until, that is, when out of the blue, Lowri was invited to join the BBC Breakfast TV show.
There she was introduced to Jared. This is what he said to her: “As it turns out I may be in the UK and I wondered if you might be interested in joining me and the other filmmakers at the BAFTA awards ceremony? It’s going to be a really, really great time. I am so excited to meet you in person, I can tell you all the Disney secrets that I couldn’t tell you, but now I can whisper them to you and no one can stop me.”
Lowri, completely stunned struggled to speak and then nodded her head — at which presenter Jon Kay said, “I think that’s a ‘yes’.”
Said Jared, “I can’t imagine being that age and that brave.”
So, a few days later, wearing her glasses of course, Lowri attended the BAFTA awards at London’s Royal Albert Hall where she walked on the red carpet along with stars such as Lady Gaga and Benedict Cumberbatch.
In the movie Mirabel, the bespectacled heroine saves the day and at the BAFTA awards Encanto won the award for Best Animated Movie. And just a few days ago, it took the Oscar at the Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature Film.
Lowri’s mother said. “It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.”
So maybe when you wish upon a star your dreams may come true – no matter who you are.
