In a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, the director of the upcoming Little Mermaid starring Halle Bailey has defended the decision to cast a Black actress for the lead role. As most will probably remember, when Halle was announced to have landed the part of Ariel in the Disney motion picture, there was a lot of backlash from people questioning why the studio decided to hire a person of color when Ariel — a fictional animated character — was white in the 1989 classic and all of the spin-offs that trailed after.
It was heavily implied that Disney may have had an agenda by casting a Black woman for the role, which the film’s director Rob Marshall has now vehemently denied, stressing that actresses of all ethnicities had been considered for the part. “We just were looking for the best actor for the role, period. The end,” he shared.
“We saw everybody and every ethnicity. [The goal was to find someone who can be] incredibly strong, passionate, beautiful, smart, clever [and with] a great deal of fire and joy.” Rob went on to praise Halle for the way in which she embodied the character with her “ethereal” and “beautiful voice,” saying it beautifully “captures the heart of Prince Eric who looks for her the entire film.” The film enters cinemas in May.
While Halle expressed how overjoyed she was to find out she was going to play Ariel in the live-action movie, her happiness was quickly suppressed by the countless comments from social media users who felt a white actress should have been given the role instead.
While some people argued their reasons, saying they grew up with the character being white, others said that it felt as if Disney was trying to push new boundaries in a new society where women are taking on lead roles formerly played by men in reboots and characters that may have been played by white actors in the past were now helmed by all sorts of races.
In an interview with Variety back in August, Halle touched on the controversy that came with her casting as she expressed how she was able to overcome the negative backlash she received following the news.
She confided in her grandparents who shared some words of wisdom about this moment being so much bigger than her. “It was an inspiring and beautiful thing to hear their words of encouragement, telling me, ‘You don’t understand what this is doing for us, for our community, for all the little Black and brown girls who are going to see themselves in you,’”