You know, the girls were the most critical because they all saw Emma Watson as Hermione. Not Belle .. Even though both characters were bookish nerds
All agreed they would have liked to see an unknown cast as Belle
And Liam Hemsworth as the beast :-)
Guess this was why Dan Stevens didn’t want to allow himself
to be cast as a certain Downton Abbey character, so insisted
they kill him off DA before that happened. (He seemed to be
striking a low profile as the Beast when he & “Belle” were
together on some talk show. He let her run her mouth while
he kept mostly quiet. Just content to collect the big gob
of money I guess.) Typecasting can be the death of a career.