With the voice of an angel, she is poised to emerge as a major new screen presence.
And a wickedly delicious turn byMelissa McCarthyas the power hungry sea witch Ursula.
Most actors dont sing well underwater.
“The Little Mermaid”, Rob MarshallEverett/Getty
I thought, I dont know how to do that, its impossible.
No ones ever really done a live action underwater musical.
You cant sing and speak underwater.
Halle Bailey as Ariel in ‘The Little Mermaid’ (Everett Collection)Everett Collection
So it became a blue screen stage situation.
Every single move of every actor, like Hitchcock used to do.
We knew they would be on different kinds of rigs and we actually kept using newer rigs.
Each time we turned around, there was something new that came out.
On the stunt team, every single actor had maybe 10 people working with them.
Thats just how we started.
Halle and Javier and Melissa, they were all wearing wig caps with tracking marks.
No costumes, though Javier had his armor and Melissa had a top that Colleen Atwood designed.
And then, a week from filming, we shut down for seven months because of Covid.
It was so crazy.
But we used that time to continue to prep and figure all this out because of my original goal.
DEADLINE:What was that?
I didnt want people to see that.
I wanted to make it feel seamless.
So the most important thing is the emotion, the story, the characters, the acting.
That had to lead the film so that youre invested in it.
Otherwise, who cares, because it would be a technical exercise.
DEADLINE:Melissa McCarthys giant squid Ursula is like this slithering sultry nightclub singer, tentacles and all.
How did you do make that work?
MARSHALL: We brought in eight dancers to work with her, playing each of her tentacles.
They literally puppeteered her tentacles as if we were doing War Horse on stage.
Then we put them all into the air.
There was a moment where a tentacle goes around Ariel, and one takes her face and turns it.
We could choreograph the tentacles.
Melissa was so hilarious; she kept saying, Im gonna take them on the road.
Were gonna play Vegas, me and my tentacles.
This was the only way to do it.
On this movie, everything had to be literally choreographed.
Sometimes I would say, action.
We would do one line on a certain rig, and Id say cut.
And wed put them in another rig.
Wed do another line, and then Id say cut.
And then the next rig.
It was the craziest thing.
How did you know she was going to work as Ursula?
MARSHALL: My goal always when Im casting is that I never have to really choose.
Its sort of chosen for you.
Someone comes in and claims the role as theirs.
The first thing she said to me, I started my career in drag.
I said, really?
I said, youre kidding.
It was funny because you know, Ursula the character was originally based on the actor Divine.
I thought, thats kind of fortuitous, isnt it?
And then, Melissa was just so game and fearless.
It had to be her because I needed the full range of colors from her.
Why is Ursula the way she is?
Shes trapped in this place, banished there by her brother, Triton.
She feels like the black sheep.
She brought all those colors to life, and then the biggest surprise was her singing.
DEADLINE:How so?
MARSHALL: It was just so surprising she did it so well.
Through my career, Ive loved working with actors who were new to singing.
Renee Zellweger and Richard Gere in Chicago, Kathy Bates in Annie, Emily Blunt, Chris Pine.
Describe your reaction when you first heard Bailey sing the song?
MARSHALL: I first saw Halle on the Grammys, when we had just started casting.
We were looking everywhere, and there was no agenda to cast a woman of color.
Just, lets find the best Ariel.
And then I saw this beautiful creature, singing like an angel on the Grammys.
I thought, who is this?
We brought her in.
I wasnt even aware that I was in tears.
She was so deeply connected to the emotion of the song.
You know, she just has a natural depth to her.
The thing about Ariel thats so tricky is that youre asking for so many things.
Youre asking for innocence and vulnerability, but strength at the same time.
Strong-willed, almost bullheaded kind of character who sees what they want and goes to get it.
But there had to be joy from her, and Halle had all of that.
She was the first actor we saw for the film, the first one.
And then we saw everybody else.
She set the bar so high, and nobody surpassed that bar.
We did a screen test with her, and it was just, well, this is it.
DEADLINE:Her reaction when you called her with the news?
MARSHALL: I call her and said, Hello, is Ariel there?
It really hit her then.
She said, What?
They find inspiration from it.
Halle was just overwhelmed with emotion.
I thought, thats an archaic way to see the world.
Are we really still there?
It was very, very moving to me.
DEADLINE:Id never really considered this until I had a conversation with Lupita Nyongo forBlack Panther.
Lupita never saw anyone who looked like her onscreen, untilThe Color Purple.
She saw herself as ugly, partly because she didnt see people onscreen who looked like her.
The idea that women and men of color are cast across the board.
Were still developing and growing in that area.
The technical aspects were daunting when I was weighing whether or not to do this film.
Who felt like they were displaced in some way and saw their life in a different way.
She builds a bridge to that and learns not to be afraid of someone who is different from her.
Breaking down that wall and saying, Im not afraid of the humans.
Im not afraid of those people.
Its a journey of self-discovery, but she embraces that world and, and teaches.
She teaches her father that theres nothing to be afraid of with those who are different from you.
As the world in many ways becomes more divisive, this felt like an antidote to all of that.
DEADLINE:You revived a classic Disney property withMary Poppins Returns, and you did aPirates of the Caribbean.
How were those past film experiences helpful?
The ship itself was like five stories.
We had to literally climb up three stories just to get to the bottom of the ship.
The whole thing had to rock and move.
We had these massive dump tanks and huge spray cannons, for the shipwreck.
I actually worked with these wonderful puppeteers who helped us play the different characters.
We brought them into rehearsal so Javier could actually play a scene with Daveed Diggs.
DEADLINE:You had touchstones fromThe Little Mermaid, but a lot of this story felt different.
How did you approach this challenge?
When I looked at it as an overall piece, I realized some things.
Ariel is the lead of the animated film, and she has one song.
Eric, the other lead, has no songs.
And hes kind of a wooden, two-dimensional character.
There was an opportunity to expand and flesh it out, and bring something deeper and more textured.
Why do they fall in love?
They both felt that they didnt fit in.
There was a sense of displacement, but also that they wanted something more, and they werent afraid.
We needed to bring something more to him.
We came up with this idea: what is she feeling when she first comes on land?
And another reprise for Ariel later on.
The bones of this are important; I love the original.
When I saw it in 1989, I remember it was a big deal.
It was the return of the movie musical, 1989.
I felt like, people had begun to accept other people breaking into song, again.
DEADLINE:Jonah Hauer-King, who plays Prince Eric, is another discovery with a strong voice.
We boiled it down to three guys.
Jonah was such a good actor, and so likable.
You like him immediately.
It was made for me.
It was so obvious.
They had immediate chemistry.
They just liked each other.
When we were filming the screen test, they were laughing and having a great time off camera.
You could just see there was an ease about them.
He seemed like a gentleman, a throwback to another time.
The whole movie hinged on that relationship and Ariels relationship with her father.
And then we found out he could sing.
