Ariel actress Halle Bailey shares her reaction to watching the first footage of her performance in Disney's upcoming live-action The Little Mermaid movie. Loosely based on the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen and released in 1989, The Little Mermaid is the latest iconic animated Disney property to receive a live-action makeover, following in the footsteps of Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Dumbo, and Mulan. The live-action Little Mermaid is directed by Mary Poppins Returns' Rob Marshall and features new songs with lyrics written by Encanto's Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Grown-ish star Halle Bailey leads the live-action Little Mermaid cast as Ariel alongside a star-studded supporting cast that includes Jonah Hauer-King as Eric, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, Javier Bardem as King Triton, and Jude Akuwudike as Grimsby. Voice-only roles include Hamilton's Daveed Diggs as Sebastian, Luca's Jacob Tremblay as Flounder, and Shang-Chi's Awkwafina as Scuttle. Like past adaptations of the popular fairy tale, the live-action Little Mermaid movie will find the young mermaid princess longing for a life on land with the dashing human prince, Eric.
During an interview with ET on the BET Awards red carpet, Bailey opened up about her reaction to watching the first footage from The Little Mermaid. The Ariel actress admits to being moved to tears by the clips she saw of her performance due to her utter disbelief. She called the entire experience "very overwhelming" which makes her "really emotional just talking about it." Read what Bailey shared below:
I've seen little clips... and I cried the other day. Because I was like, "I don't understand how this is happening! How this is even me?" It's very overwhelming. I get really emotional just talking about it.
It's completely understandable why Bailey had such an emotional reaction to her performance in The Little Mermaid. From a young age, the 22-year-old actress has been heavily involved in show business. She is perhaps best known as one half of the musical duo Chloe x Halle alongside her sister, Chloe Bailey, the two earning five Grammy Award nominations since 2018. From there, the sisters went on to star in the ABC sitcom, Grown-ish. Now, for her feature film debut, Halle Bailey will be portraying one of the most iconic Disney princesses in live-action, representing both the culmination of her hard work so far and a sign of her promising acting career.
The live-action Little Mermaid movie has wrapped filming and is currently in post-production for a May 26, 2023, release date. Other than the Disney movie, Bailey will also be starring in another musical adaptation, The Color Purple, which is almost finished filming ahead of a December 20, 2023, release. For those unacquainted with her, both The Color Purple and The Little Mermaid will work wonders for introducing audiences to the talents of the up-and-coming Halle Bailey as both an actress and a singer.
Source: ET