“Arielle” actress Halle Bailey: “Black princesses are possible”

Halle Bailey stars in the new “Arielle” remake. And many Black girls identify with the “new” mermaid – an overwhelming feeling for Bailey.

Straight red hair and skin as fair as porcelain – the image of Ariel from the original “Disney” musical from 1989 is burned into many people’s memories. 34 years later, “Into The Woods” director Rob Marshall gives the classic a new shine. With young star Halle Bailey in the leading role, he brings the first black mermaid to the screens of this world.

But not everyone is enthusiastic about the reinterpretation of the “Disney” hit. Shortly after the cast was announced in 2019, there were initial reactions and protests against Black Ariel. Users expressed their displeasure under hashtags such as #NotMyArielle. Your argument: You know the “classic” Arielle from your childhood days, so you no longer identify with the remake.

Black Ariel evokes mixed reactions

For others, especially young Black girls and boys, the cast of the remake is a source of excitement. Numerous videos went viral in which young black children showed how excited they were about the new Ariel.

An overwhelming feeling for the leading actress. In an interview with “Glamour”, the 23-year-old says: “When I saw these videos for the first time, I just had to cry.” She sobbed uncontrollably, she says, adding: “The fact that these girls are looking at me and feeling the emotions that they are feeling has overwhelmed me.”

“Black princesses are possible. We deserve to occupy those spaces too.”

She herself was always looking for a black princess in the Disney stories of this world. When Anika Noni Rose played the princess in “Kiss the Frog” in 2009, everything changed for her. The film gave her a new perspective on her life, emphasizes Bailey. She thought, “Wow, that’s possible. Black princesses are possible. We deserve to occupy those spaces too.”

In addition, the actress connects a lot of personal things with the Disney film adaptation from 1989. She herself loved Arielle as a child. “When I saw her, I thought, ‘She’s so beautiful, I want to be a mermaid too,'” she says. That she didn’t look like her back then wasn’t a problem for Bailey. “Because that’s what I was used to at the time,” she explains.

It wasn’t planned that Arielle should be black

For Bailey, the role of Ariel is an affair of the heart. She not only associates Arielle with beautiful childhood memories, but also sees parallels to her own life in the story of the sea princess. “I felt like I could empathize with her because she is also growing up in a big family and has older sisters to raise her and a father who is very protective and strict at times but loves her so much.” , she describes.

Apart from that, she also tried to give the role a new touch and show her from a more vulnerable side, to portray a nuanced Ariel with more depth. The message that Bailey conveys with her role in the remake is of great importance not only to the actress herself, but to the entire production team. At the premiere in Berlin, director Marshall emphasized to the “Berliner Zeitung” how wonderful it was for him “to see how black young girls and boys reacted to the first teasers.” That touched him very much.

At the beginning it wasn’t even his intention to cast a woman of color. “We were simply looking for the best Arielle and invited women of all possible ethnicities to the casting,” he says. In the end, Bailey was most convincing with her charisma, her look and her musical and acting performance.

“Can it really be true that in 2023 we’re still discussing the skin color of actors?”

However, the 62-year-old cannot understand the negative reactions that followed. He describes it as “archaic” and says: “I thought: Can it really be true that in 2023 we are still discussing the skin color of actors? At that point we are?”. That’s why he’s proud to have made a difference with his decision. “Even if that wasn’t the intention at all,” he emphasizes.

As Bailey told Glamour, the audition invitation came as a complete surprise. At first she thought she had been invited for a supporting role. She later learned that Marshall was so confident in her performance at the Grammys in early 2019 and saw her as “the perfect Disney princess” that he personally contacted her.

Catapulted into a new world

When she finally got the role, she freaked out completely. “I freaked out, I screamed. I was like, ‘Is this real life?'” she recalls. Then she was “catapulted into the new world”. And that literally. Since then, Bailey’s life has turned 180 degrees. In addition to stars such as Hollywood actress Melissa McCarthy, “Little Women” actor Jonah Hauer-King, “Oscar” winner Javier Bardem and child star Jacob Tremblay, she found herself filming a little later, and the whole world was talking about it overnight she.

A great challenge for the then 18-year-old, which she faced with bravura. “She’s incredibly wise for her age. When she came to the casting she was 18, now she’s 23,” says Marshall and continues: “I think she understands what her role means to a lot of people, she knows it What matters is what she does and it’s bigger than herself.”

“Arielle, the Mermaid” will be in German cinemas on May 25th.

Source:“glamour”, “Berlin newspaper”

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