Professor's Picks: Five Best Casting Choices in Disney's Live Action Remakes (and Five Ideal Recasts)
Sorry if I startled you: no, Scarlett Johansson is not up to play Cinderella in Disney's next live action remake.
The basis for this piece's lead image comes from the Disney Dream Portrait series by Annie Leibovitz. This was a photo series that took various celebrities and posed them as iconic Disney characters in a promotional campaign for the Disney Parks, one of which featured Johansson stepping into the glass shoes of Cinderella. The line premiered in 2007 and concluded in 2014, right around the time when Disney took a look at this gallery and thought "Okay ... what if we did that for real?"
The last ten or so years of Disney have been more or less defined by this imperial march of live-action remakes of their animated classics. We have had at least one every year since about 2014. And unless you're one of those niche fans whose favorite Disney movie is like The Great Mouse Detective, by this point you have almost certainly seen your favorite Disney film subjected to the live-action treatment--Alan Menken promising new music to be added to the song-book, the first-look teasers that make you second guess whether this story works at all in live-action, the renewed public scrutiny over the animated film that Disney inevitably kowtows to, the revealing director statements that give away how none of the filmmakers have actually seen the animated film since third grade, etc.
Because I don't think the legacy of Disney remakes is an all-or-nothing game, or that they should only be discussed as products of a capitalist battle strategy. There have been fleeting glimpses of inspiration, such that I remain convinced that this ordeal was not a destined failure. Adaptation has been a part of film for a long time, and the Disney animated catalogue is rich with stories and characters with evergreen appeal. These could have worked. When these remakes fail to live up to their potential, it's not because Disney magic is finite or adaptation is bad, but because of poor creative choices. These choices are also usually easily discerned and articulated, and so it's worth reflecting on what those actually are.
I want to take this moment and reflect on which casting choices really paid off and why. And because I am also a fan and am not above fan-casting, I also can't help but offer some alternatives. I've never thought the remakes should be note-for-note replications of the animated films, but basic tenants like tone, character, and theme should be considered part of the package. There are already a bajillion "Peter Pan" movies, if Disney is going to insist on producing another, and if they are going to leverage the Disney brand to sell said product, it should at least aspire to "feel" like the animated movie it is capitalizing on.
Let's start by assessing ...
1. Melissa McCarthy - Ursula (The Little Mermaid)
Ursula's casting was the first announced for the remake of The Little Mermaid, and I cannot forget how much anxiety it filled me with. Yes, I loved her as Sookie in Gilmore Girls, and I know she's gotten Oscar noms, but McCarthy is one of those stars who markets herself on her comedic ability. This was especially worrying for me because Ursula in particular is one of those characters who is frequently afflicted by a certain adaptational handicap. Actresses will generally show up early to play belt out "Poor Unfortunate Souls," but Ursula's cunning and menace tend to be left on the table, which in turn makes Ariel's story feel limp. What you often get are performers who love twirling around wearing tentacles but never feel like a genuine threat. When it was announced that Megan from Bridesmaids was going to be playing the sea witch, I had no reason to expect this portrayal of the character to be any different.
My read at the time was that Disney was just trying to ride McCarthy's celebrity and mold the role of Ursula after her star persona, but reportedly the story was the exact opposite. It was McCarthy who approached Rob Marshall about auditioning for the role, citing a deep love of both the movie and the character, and she built her performance from the inside out--which is what it always should be--and the results speak for themselves. She brought camp, yes, but also a psychology and even sophistication, and when the moment called for it, she could be downright savage.
Anyways, I'd like to offer this public apology to McCarthy for doubting her. Not only did she "not ruin" the movie, she actually elevated it. In an age where Disney seems to be moving further away from traditional villains, McCarthy's Ursula was a much-needed reprieve.
2. Will Smith - Genie (Aladdin)
Smith's take on The Genie in the 2019 remake of Aladdin proves that casting the right person isn't as straightforward as selecting someone who can literally replicate the performance of the animated character. Any imitation of Robin Williams was going to fall drastically flat, especially outside the medium of animation. Disney didn't need someone to impersonate Williams, they needed someone who could match the volume of Williams' energy, in whatever shape that ended up being.
Where Williams approached the role like everyone's favorite drama teacher, Smith plays it more like the world's swaggiest dating coach, playing to Smith's strengths. Letting Genie be hyper-confident also helps bring out the insecurity of Aladdin during his Prince Ali stunt (and while we're here, let's also acknowledge Mena Massoud as another top-notch casting choice in this game). You're not distracted comparing Smith to Williams because he is playing his own game, which ends up being the best tribute Williams ever could have asked for.
3. Lily James - Cinderella (Cinderella)
Perhaps someone ought to do a formal census, but I don't think any fairy-tale has been adapted as often as "Cinderella." This puts any new iteration in the difficult position of finding a unique hook for an audience that is Cinderella'd out. Most contemporary attempts rely on some form of subversion--which is how we get things like Cinderella the businesswoman or Cinderella the rock star. But what Lily James did was far more daring: she just played the character straight.
Without a gimmick to hide behind, all this film had to make its case was the commitment of its players, and this is nowhere clear than with Cinderella herself. James deserves all the credit she can get for forcing audiences to reckon with how this character, who exists in the public discourse as little more than an archetype or a cutout, has always harbored emotional depth and resilience that is seldom acknowledged.
Where the Cinderella figure has long felt inaccessible to a world without fairy-godmothers or talking mice, James makes Ella's commitment to altruism and gentleness seem natural, logical even. Part of this is the ease with which James plays this role, and she set the tone for what a "good" Disney princess would look like in this bold new world of live action remakes. (Naomi Scott and Halle Bailey were the only actresses that seemed to share her natural instincts for princess-dom.) James brings sweetness in spades, but also dignity and insight. And herein lies some hidden wisdom not just for the Disney remakes, but adaptation as a whole: no twist or gimmick carries as far as simply understanding why a character or story works in the first place.
4. Tessa Thompson - Lady (Lady & the Tramp)
The remake of Lady & the Tramp was the first to be shipped directly to Disney+, arriving as part of the opening day package. Though this film was forgotten almost immediately after impact, I actually found it quite cozy and inviting, which is also how I would characterize the performance of lead actress, Tessa Thompson, in the role of Lady.
Thompson has generally found her niche as the world-weary, streetwise girl who can take care of herself in films like Thor: Ragnarök and Sorry to Bother You. It is amazing, then, that Thompson managed to bring a certain brightness and warmth to her character. Just as impressive is the way Thompson manages to preserve Lady's innocence while making her not just intelligent, but also funny. It's a much more sophisticated way of empowering our leading "Lady" than what you commonly see in contemporary media, including the span of the Disney remakes, but Thompson sells it.
Disney+'s first exclusive remake had me asking whether the remakes were just a game better played on streaming outside the pressures of theatrical performance. Then Pinocchio happened and, well, lessons were learned.
5. Emma Stone - Cruella De Vil (Cruella)
Villain origin stories are very high-risk/high-reward games. Everyone wants to see their favorite baddies get the spotlight, but the end result is often infantilizing, or otherwise unsatisfying. How do you keep your character sympathetic without endorsing behavior that is actually reprehensible or defanging what it was that made their villainy so delicious to begin with?
Cruella (2021) walked this line in large part owing to the careful structuring of the plot, but a lot of attention must also go to Stone herself. Her performance is not only delightful unto itself, but Stone also manages to make this villain in utero sympathetic without excusing her or turning her into a martyr. Stone's "born brilliant, born bad" monologue in particular helps carve out a believable space for someone owning their inherent darkness, played neither as a phoenix moment nor a fall from grace, just an acceptance of one's lived truth.
And now for ...
1. Baloo (The Jungle Book) - David Harbour
I remember the biggest talking point for the remake of "The Jungle Book" was how it supposedly recentered the story to more closely match Kipling's writing. I've talked before how this not only doesn't give proper credit to the 1967 Disney adaptation, but also its gestures toward "fixing" the Disney film have only felt like they would make sense for someone who already hates the animated film. Yes, Phil Harris is playing a very different Baloo from the one Kipling wrote, but Kipling also didn't cast him as a conman who is effectively mooching off of Mowgli. However Favreau and company landed on Bill Murray as the natural choice for Baloo, I will never know, but the remake's casual misapplication of one Disney's most endearing characters stands out as one of the sorest spots in this remake for me.
On one level, Disney's Baloo is basically an oaf completely lacking in self-awareness, but he is also the film's heart. He embodies the comfort and security of childhood that Mowgli must both internalize and graduate from. (Not a role that demands a lot of irony or snark--again, who invited Bill Murray to this party?) Roles like this are generally best played by performers who have shown comedic ability, but they do not necessarily have to be comedic actors. You want an engaging personality, but also someone who won't jump straight into parody. Which brings me to David Harbour.
This guy has actually been around for a while, but it wasn't until his breakout role as the curmudgeonly but goodhearted Chief Jim Hopper that Harbour became a household name. It's in this role where we see Harbour's secret weapon: he can play even an emotionally distant figure like Hopper and keep him ever accessible to the audience. Harbour has admitted that while he loves his role on Stranger Things, he does not want to be forever typed as Hopper. Baloo's goofiness and ease would certainly offset the hardness and weariness of our favorite police chief while also building on his natural warmth and depth.
2. Merryweather (Sleeping Beauty) - Awkwafina
It is double-dipping to include Awkwafina on this list since she already did leave her mark on the remakes as Scuttle in this year's "Little Mermaid" remake. But Ewan McGregor, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Emma Thompson have been repeat players in this game as well, so we're not going to let this technicality get in our way.
Merryweather and the other fairies did technically appear in Maleficent (with all of their names curiously changed for what I'm sure is a very good reason ...) but that version of the "Sleeping Beauty" story didn't really prioritize the fairies as characters. (I can't even remember which fairy was supposed to be "Merryweather" in this film. Was it the one played by Juno Temple?) We never really got the chance to judge whether or not Disney could pull this character off in live action. This isn't so surprising. Even though the fairies are a large part of why Disney's Sleeping Beauty works, they tend to get left out of the conversation.
At her most basic function, Merryweather is comic relief. She is eternally disgruntled, but she also keeps the fairies grounded. Because Merryweather is assumed to be the youngest of the trio, she has little disregard for form or structure, and has no trouble saying the quiet part loud. Saying things loud is kind of a trademark of Awkwafina's brand of comedy, yet she has no difficulty playing a role completely straight, even vulnerable (I'd recommend you all check out her work in The Farewell). Give this girl a fairy wand, and the magic will take care of itself.
3. Captain Hook (Peter Pan) - Jason Mantzoukas
Peter Pan and Wendy was yet another disaster whose base problems can be traced back to the executive decision to completely strip the adaptation from the source material's tone: for some reason, Disney wanted their remake to be gritty and earthy. I could almost understand this rationale for The Jungle Book since the Disney adaptation is noticeably lighter than the Kipling text, but with Peter Pan, I just can't get into the head of the guy who thought that Neverland, the ultimate fantasy playground, should look the armpit of the California coast.
Captain Hook was one of the main casualties of this approach. Gone was the explosivity of Hans Conried's rendition in the '53 version that endeared Walt to the character so much that he couldn't bring himself to kill him off at the end. In its place, you have Jude Law being ... so forgettable I can't even cook up an entertaining analogy. This isn't to say that a more suave depiction of the pirate was a total non-starter (Jason Isaacs played a very sinister Hook in the 2003 adaptation of the "Peter Pan" story, though that version was also a much stronger film all around), but in going back to who these remakes should have been made for, the tone and sensibilities of the animated films should be our starting point: Disney's Hook ought to be entertaining.
Mantzoukas is a recurring comical face in television shows like Parks & Recreation, The Good Place, and Brooklyn 99. The throughline of Mantzoukas is his exorbitance: he is both petty and obnoxious, but the kind of obnoxious that is very entertaining to watch, and the kind that would actually suit the character very well. You could easily believe that he is the kind of guy who would explode over an eleven-year-old stealing his hat.
I feel like it's not quite the same ordeal as Ursula where the live-action player always needs to keep one foot (tentacle?) in reality. Hook's just not as cunning as someone like Ursula or Jafar. While he ought to still feel believable to the audience, Disney's Hook works best when played at max volume.
4. Mufasa (The Lion King) - Bryan Cranston
The best case for reimagining the bulk of the Disney animated catalogue is the curiosity for seeing the story brought to life with new talent. That apparently was not on the minds of the creative (?) team behind the live action (?) remake of The Lion King. Here the guiding philosophy appeared to be "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." To be fair, that has been a common refrain from Disney fans throughout the entire remake era, so perhaps Disney thought they were giving fans what they wanted with 2019's The Lion King. But this remake follows the animated film tediously, lifting not only exact lines and shots, but also carrying over James Earl Jones in the same role he originated, something no other remake has done yet (scratch that--Jim Cummings came back for Christopher Robin, didn't he?).
To be perfectly clear, the question isn't whether Jones is/was a fantastic actor, in or out of the specific role of Mufasa. Rather, it's a matter of giving any reimagining the opportunity to find its own creative rhythm. The ghosts of the animated films are already haunting the development of these remakes--aint no need to plague them further.
Cranston probably comes as close to anyone could ever hope to matching Jones in power or pedigree. His signature role, Walter White in Breaking Bad, is arguably the most iconic character in all of television history. Few actors have ever commanded a screen like Cranston, but his larger resume also reveals a versatility that showcases the full range of his abilities: intellect, warmth, even humor. Surely somewhere in there, Cranston could find room for Mufasa.
5. Belle (Beauty and the Beast) - Melissa Barrera
In the same way that actors don't always know how to approach a Disney villain, the princess characters are often reduced to a barebones matrix of generic saccharinity, symptomatic of how the larger audience doesn't really see fairy-tales or "princess movies" as legitimate storytelling capable of the same degree of pathos. This discounts how the heroines of the Disney fairy-tales are subjected to all sorts of trials and respond to them with acts of remarkable inner strength and virtue. This is certainly true of Belle and the way that holding onto her values not only sustains her amidst her adversity, but also brings out the best in her environment.
This oversight isn't necessarily the issue that we ran into specifically with Emma Watson's Belle (I have already talked plenty about the ramifications of that casting choice), but what I'm getting at is that Disney princesses require actresses that will see them as characters first and mascots second. Which brings me to Melissa Barrera.
Audiences probably know Barrera best from her role as Sam Carpenter, the face of the most recent films in the long-running Scream franchise, or else as Vanessa from the film adaptation of In the Heights. She's neither a total unknown nor a headlining movie star, which is a really good field from which to pick a new face to play an iconic character.
Barrera is also one of those actresses who can house light and dark in the same character, affording a gravity that is so often overlooked for characters whose defining attributes are generally reduced to hair and dress color. (These musical remakes also tend to neglect the vocal abilities of the performers, another thing we would not have to worry about with Barrera.) She knows how to carry that grace that is so intrinsic to the Disney Princess as well as the perceptiveness central to Belle specifically.
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| Funny or Die "Mary Poppins Quits with Kristen Bell" (2014) |
With the unique space that Disney stories occupy in the public eye, it is sometimes difficult to view these characters as characters and not just pop culture reference points. It is common for the players in any of these live-action remakes to talk about "how much they loved Lumiere/Maleficent/ Bagheera growing up" as part of the film's marketing, all while never really engaging with the nuances of the love surrounding these characters from Disney's intergenerational fanbase. I'm not saying Disney should exclusively cast from the pool of die-hard Disney fans, but when that enthusiasm for the mythology guides the overall vision of the film, the difference is immeasurable.
Thoughtful filmmaking begins with understanding and appreciating what you have to work with. And what better canvas could filmmakers ask for than the library of Disney characters?
--The Professor
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