Halle Bailey hopes her Little Mermaid portrayal will inspire little girls 'just like me'

Halle Bailey of Chloe x Halle fame wants little girls to know that they too can be “Part of Your World” with her upcoming portrayal of Ariel in the Disney live-action version of The Little Mermaid.

Speaking with Variety, the singer-actress, who snagged Grammy nominations for the Chloe x Halle albums “The Kids Are Alright” and “Ungodly Hour,” says she knows the importance of her casting (she is the first Black Disney princess in a live-action movie), which was announced in 2019, and will be released in 2023.

“I want the little girl in me and the little girls just like me who are watching to know that they’re special, and that they should be a princess in every single way,” she told the outlet.

She then added that as a little girl herself, she would have benefitted from a role model like herself. “There’s no reason that they shouldn’t be. That reassurance was something that I needed.”

“What that would have done for me, how that would have changed my confidence, my belief in myself, everything. Things that seem so small to everyone else, it’s so big to us,” she continued.

When her casting was announced in 2019, she was met with some racist backlash and trolling online. Halle shared with Variety that it was her singing partner-sister Chloe, and her family, who uplifted her with words of support during the worst of online hate.

“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,’” she revealed.

Earlier this year, sister Chloe spoke about being her sister’s biggest supporter at the news of her casting, and even wept during rehearsals.

“When people see and hear her onscreen, they'll have nothing bad to say,” she told Buzzfeed. “I remember running lines with her while she was auditioning. I love thinking back to those moments outside our house in LA and going over lines and hearing her sing. It was also so special seeing her at the screen test.”

“Like, I cried,” she raved. “I knew in that moment that she landed the role — I don't think she did until she got the official call, but I knew that the role was hers.”

This isn’t the first time that Halle has spoken to Variety about her determination and perseverance in the face of adversity in taking on this role. "I feel like I'm dreaming and I'm just grateful and I don't pay attention to the negativity," she told Variety at the Power of Young Hollywood gala in 2019. "I just feel like this role was something bigger than me and greater and it's going to be beautiful. I'm just so excited to be a part of it."

Director Rob Marshall (Chicago) told the outlet that Halle’s performance was everything he’d hoped, and he was massively impressed even when she auditioned. “Halle had this incredible facility to be able to dig deep, find the truth of Ariel’s passion and her heart,” he says. “It was like watching a great film actor being born.”

Of her audition, he says, “When she finished, I was in tears because she’s so soulful. You could tell right away that she was able to harness Ariel’s passion, her fire, her soul, her joy and her heart.”

Of her performance of “Part of Your World” during filming, Marshall gushed, “[Halle] sings that moment up an octave from the original. It’s the most chilling, and the most thrilling, film moment because it crystallizes not just her incredible vocal ability but the emotional passion she has in singing it.”

Halle’s other upcoming musical-movie role is The Color Purple, an adaptation of Alice Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which was later made into a 1985 Steven Spielberg movie starring Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. Oprah produces the musical drama in which Halle plays Nettie, and even had a “pinch me” moment when she got to meet the iconic talk show host in person.

The Little Mermaid is scheduled for a May 2023 release and also stars Javier Bardem, with the music co-written by Lin-Manuel Miranda.