Mufasa: The Lion King is a photo-realistic animated prequel that explores the origins of the title orphan lion cub destined to be king. Directed by Barry Jenkins, he emphasizes the importance of honoring the original film’s legacy while adding depth to Mufasa, Taka, and Sarabi. During a virtual press conference, the cast talked about their personal connections to the film and the impact the original had on generations of fans.
The Nerds of Color participated in the press conference with Aaron Pierre as Mufasa, Kelvin Harris Jr. as Taka, Tiffany Boone as Sarabi, Seth Rogen as Pumbaa, Billy Eichner as Timon, and Jenkins, along with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the original songs for the prequel.
Jenkins, like many of us, thought he knew what it took for Mufasa to be king. That all changed after he read Jeff Nathanson’s script and that the “things that we’ve concretized over 30 years about how someone becomes the perfect father, the perfect leader,” and “the assumptions of what that path was, which is totally not correct.” “There was a different way that I could actually relate to more as someone who grew up far outside the path or the system that leads you to become a great leader,” he said. ” In that sense, I found myself closer to Mufasa and this interesting way, and I realized audiences would find themselves closer as well, if we did our job, cast the right person and persons and just leaned in and tried to really build a life that could, that people could see themselves in, and they could really, truly love just bringing all this added levels of complexity to Mufasa.”
When it came to discovering a new story in something that already exists originally, Jenkins had to live in the legacy that he was about to walk into. “There’s a reason why people fall in love and have been in love for 30 years with The Lion King, he said. “Once I diagnosed what that was, it was just clarity of emotion and clarity of purpose.”
Jenkins found that clarity or emotion and purpose in Nathanson’s script. “When I first read the script, you know, at the prompting of my wife, I realized there was just such a deep depth in so many of these characters that hadn’t been on the periphery, but they just there just wasn’t space for their stories to be told in full, but then to show them their full selves,” he said. “Once I saw those things, I saw all of this clarity of intent, clarity of purpose, honesty of emotion, whether you’re a four year old or 104 year old, there’s something in The Lion King for you. And all those things were present in Mufasa.”
Mufasa: The Lion King feels nostalgic while also telling a new story, it also bridges the gap between two different generations. So for Jenkins, who watched the animated original, he saw a lot his child self watching the original and himself as the man who directed the Academy Award-winning film Moonlight in Mufasa. “I assume someone who came from that world could not walk the same path as someone like Mufasa,” he said. “When I first read the script, I realized, oh, wait a second, Mufasa grew up with a found family the same way that I did.”
Jenkins said there’s imagery within both films where he could be talking about Moonlight or Mufasa: The Lion King. “So there were just so many ways I saw I was able to see myself and Mufasa through this telling of a story, and something about that made me feel like I was taking these really raw, beautiful feelings of encountering this story as a child and expanding them with the complexity, I will say, of 25 additional years of life, or 30 years of additional life,” he said. “In the case of people who encountered this in 1994, I think just not separating myself from someone who I believe is going to have that experience, but being one of those people, I think it was the key to figuring out how to make this film.”
Pierre, who voices Mufasa, believes that reason the character is so beloved is because he I think he radiated an essence of love and togetherness and unity. “I think we all crave that in our own respective lives and in our own personal communities and in our global community,” he said.
Of course, voicing a great character who was originally voiced by an icon comes with a lot of pressure. “I was certainly very nervous to, you know, contribute in a small way to the beautiful legacy that is Mufasa that the great James Earl Jones originated. And hopefully I was able to serve that in a small way.”
Even before Pierre became a professional actor, he was already being inspired by Jones. “For me, he has always been the top of the mountain. You know, from his extensive filmography, his extensive work on the stage and his extensive voice work, I’ve always studied him. I’ve always observed him. I’ve always tried to be a sponge and learn from him,” the actor said. “It’s very nerve wracking because of that, and because of the place he holds in my heart to contribute in a small way to that, that you know, that legacy.”
Pierre believes that all of that anxiety served him for the better and helped with his performance because think the Mufasa we meet in the prequel is an adolescent version of this character. “This isn’t the adult King who’s running things. He’s he’s figuring out his identity,” he said. “In the ’94 original we meet all these characters, and they’re fully fledged, and we kind of get to see them not quite in their bodies. Kind of feels like they’re wearing shoes that are, like two sizes too big, and I felt like that. So I think it actually served as something that propelled me forward, as opposed to prohibiting me. And it was a really beautiful experience.”
The one thing that surprised Pierre the most and what made him fall in love with the iconic character, was that there was more to Mufasa than we originally know. “When we meet with Fauci, he is the king. He has an abundance of wisdom. He’s the pinnacle of his community. He’s really unshakable. But we learn in this that in fact, there was a journey to that point, and the beginning of that journey involved being separated from his family, becoming an orphan, being ostracized, being degraded, dismissed, and despite all of those circumstances, embracing everything that is and channeling it into something that elevates himself, elevates the people around him, and then he becomes, you know, the king,” he said.
“I think I imagine that if I was a young person watching this, in fact, I’m experiencing it as an adult watching it, I draw inspiration from that there’s something very joyful in engaging with your set of circumstances and focusing on the controllables and not the uncontrollables,” Pierre adds.
In regards to Taka, aka Scar, Harris Jr. says audiences shouldn’t be quick to judge the lion whose father has be taught him the honorific was his birthright and that to be king must mean you must know when to be deceitful. “I enjoyed him so much in the original version. And I was like, he’s so playful, he’s so lively. I was like, all those characteristics still remain true in this. And my first conversation with Barry, who was like, just stay present, stay in the moment with Taka, and allow his instincts and his natural tendencies and his love for life and people and community to shine through,” he said. “I just kind of played it with that. And then, you know, throw in a nice voice, and you just see what happens.”
In the prequel, Boone’s Sarabi is looking for her tribe after her pride was attacked by a rogue group of lions. For the actor, she connected with the character’s vulnerability and search for a tribe right away, even though she didn’t know who or what she was auditioning for from the start. “They had a different name for her, so I was just like, ‘who’s this cool chick who’s confident and little sassy,” she said. “I know a lot of times when we would be recording, Barry would be like, ‘put in that sassiness, put in that fire.’ I think that’s just naturally in me.”
Just like The Lion King, Mufasa: The Lion King is an animated musical. And like all musicals, there are songs that will advance the narrative. So for Miranda, it was such a dream to write new songs for a prequel to a film that has the perfect soundtrack. “The Lion King is that original ’94 soundtrack. Is an immortal soundtrack. It’s like no skips from Elton John and Tim Rice and then Hans Zimmer’s incredible score,” he describes. “If it had just been that first movie, I think I would have been very intimidated. But there’s been an entire world of Lion King music. There’s the incredible Broadway musical. It’s one of the longest running musicals on Broadway. There’s there’s Beyonce album, The Gift which sort of expanded the vocabulary of what a Lion King song could sound like. So it felt like just this amazing world to play in.”
Miranda adds that he had help from his Moana collaborator Mark Mancina, and used Lebo M, who was the first voice you hear on the original animated film, as a secret weapon. “I knew I had just like incredible talent my corner, that would, that would help us get to that Lion King level,” he said.
Miranda said the decision for when the characters would sing came from 90 percent of the script. “Sometimes you get a script and they go, we want to make this a musical. And you read it, you go, ‘where?’ But this, there was such care taken to make space for the music, to carry the ball and carry the emotional real estate,” he said. “I’m amazed at some of the things music got to do in this movie, and and most of them were there to the point where most of the song titles were actually began as line of lines of dialog reference, reading that script.”
When Miranda first read the script he got emotional after reading that Taka had a secret and that he always wanted a brother. “I was like, ‘that’s a song title,’ and that’s our way of learning all about them,” he said.
While we can expect original songs from the almost-EGOT winner, Miranda found one place in the script that didn’t have a song but deserved one. “I think there was one number that wasn’t in the script that I pitched to Barry, which was we had this incredible villain in Kiros, voiced by Mads Michaelson. I was like to have Mads as your villain and not make him sing in a musical,” he said in a shocked tone. “So please, let me write him a big old tune, and I’m hearing dance hall, and I know those are two different tastes where they’re gonna taste great together. So that was really a lot of fun.”
While Mufasa: The Lion King brings in a new cast to voice the prequel, it’s still very much connected to the 2019 film. And one way the prequel bridges the gap between the two is by brining back Eichner and Rogen as the lovable meerkat and warthog duo Timon and Pumba, respectively. The two reprise their voice roles this time around and add hilarious color commentary as Rafiki the mandrill tells the origin story of two lions, Mufasa and Taka, to Kiara — the granddaughter of Mufasa and daughter of Simba and Nala.
Rogen believes that the two are so beloved because they are outcasts and he just gravitated to the two characters who were comedic levity in a film where there’s a lot of heroic acts and characters putting themselves out there in spectacular ways. “There’s very heavy themes in this film. So I think it’s nice, and it’s amazing how well Barry kind of modulated the heaviness and the lightness. And it was really fun to get to participate in that,” he said.
While Eichner and Rogen are known for their raunchy comedy, Jenkins gave plenty of room for the two to be playful. What was the most surprising about that is how all of the improv ended up in the final cut. “I’d say we are given a shocking dangerous considering the epic scale of this film and the fact that it plays all over the world, the fact that they bring Seth and in, Seth and I in, and are we get to riff so much, and even more surprisingly, the amount of that that ends up in this Disney family spectacular is totally stunning,” Eichner said.
However, Eichner wasn’t as scared with voicing Timon this time around as the 2019 version gave him and Rogen the time to develop their characters as their own while also honoring the characters Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella created.
The Timon and Pumba dynamic is already so well known, and Mufasa: The Lion King gives audiences a chance to see where they are now that Simba has restored peace to Pride Rock. So the prequel explores the Mufasa and Taka dynamic. However, Pierre and Harris Jr. developed their dynamic in a unique way without having to actually record their voices in the same room. “So our friendship and our brotherhood, the foundation and the roots of that actually developed, 90% of that outside of the context of work,” he said. “That’s what we that’s what we engaged with, and that’s what we drew from to find the brotherly bond and sort of the familiarity that these two, of course, brothers would have.”
“The animation format of three years of doing the same movie helps to kind of get a rhythm going,” Harris Jr. said. “Now we sit there and kind of infuse some of that extra schmaltz.”
Mufasa: The Lion King opens in theaters on December 20, 2024.
