One of the most exciting elements of Rob Marshall’s live-action remake of Disney classic The Little Mermaid is the ensemble cast playing these unforgettable characters. Alongside the talented Halle Bailey as Ariel, Melissa McCarthy plays the wicked sea witch Ursula, with Javier Bardem as her rival and ruler of Atlantica, King Triton. While promoting the movie, Collider’s Steve Weintraub spoke to the duo about how they stepped into these roles, who almost played the lead role of Ariel, and more.

Marshall’s The Little Mermaid takes audiences back under the sea in a whole new way, combining stunt work and VFX to recreate Ariel’s underwater world, but it also introduces new characters, like Noma Dumezweni as Queen Selina, and brand-new songs like Prince Eric’s (played by Jonah Hauer-King) “Wild Uncharted Waters.” McCarthy tells Weintraub that even in familiar numbers like “Part of Your World,” Bailey’s performance and the writing give all-new meaning to the original, saying, “It’s not a whole new number, it’s not a whole thing, but those little differences… Those things making it relevant to today meant so much to me.” The cast is rounded out by Jacob Tremblay as Ariel’s best friend, Flounder, Awkwafina as Scuttle, Daveed Diggs as Sebastian, and more.
COLLIDER VIDEO OF THE DAYSCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

Before hitting theaters on May 26, McCarthy and Bardem discussed how they landed these roles and talk about their favorite sequences in the movie. During the interview, which you can watch in the video or read along with in the transcript below, McCarthy commends the “amazing talent” that brought Atlantica to life, including the magic of editing, Marshall, and co-writer John DeLuca, and Bardem also shares what it was like working on Dune Part Two with director Denis Villeneuve.

COLLIDER: I have a million questions for you, but first, let me start by saying congratulations, you’re both so good in this. I know it’s gonna make at least $15 at the box office.

MELLISA MCCARTHY: [Crosses fingers] Probably!

JAVIER BARDEM: Let’s see if it’s $25.

Image via Disney

Right, exactly. So this is a movie that I would imagine a lot of people wanted to be a part of, so, ultimately, what did the both of you pay to be in it?

MCCARTHY: Truly! I wasn’t up on the list, I wasn’t on the list, I wasn’t list adjacent, and I was like, “I’m not gonna get it,” but I knew I had to at least make a play for it because I was like, “I’ll be so mad at myself forever if I didn’t even try to get, you know, turned down.” And I couldn’t call Rob because I didn’t have Rob Marshall’s number, but I knew a guy who knew a guy, and I just said, “Can I please come and talk to you? Can I just tell you what Ursula means to me?” And then, I never thought I would get it. So, I was not asked, I begged to do it, and I’m so glad I did.

It worked out.

MCCARTHY: Yeah, it worked out, and every minute was great.

BARDEM: Same here. I sent a text saying, “I would love to play King Triton if there’s such a thing as a King Triton with a Spanish accent.” He was in the grocery store shopping, and said, “We were talking about you,” and I said, “Really?” And then my daughter was there and I was so excited, and she said, “What’s going on?” “I may be in The Little Mermaid!” And she said – she was seven – “Are you gonna play Ariel?”

Image via Disney

MCCARTHY: [Laughs] I want to see that movie so badly, with him as our Ariel.

BARDEM: So we both really wanted to be part of this.

The thing that really struck me, your performance is fantastic. The performance, fantastic, singing, fantastic, but the thing that got me was the way the animators brought Ursula to life, so how many thank-you cards have you sent to CGI people?

MCCARTHY: That’s a long list, did you sit through the whole end of it? How about the end of that movie, when that scroll goes and you see all those people, and all that amazing talent to make it. To bridge from what we did to what you see takes so much work, and they just made everything better. There are moments– I did so much of it, but I’m like, “Well, I can only spin so far,” because I’m not really an octopus, and I can spin and I’m not there, but they have to get me to here. It was done so beautifully, I thought, and I need to send– I’m gonna break both hands writing thank-you letters.

Image via Disney

What is your favorite moment from the original film, and what is the moment in this one that you just loved it?

BARDEM: There are many moments for me. I mean, “Under the Sea” in this one, the choreography that they’ve built around that, it’s crazy. I don’t know how they’ve done it. It’s so beautiful, and it’s a fest, it’s something to stand up and applaud and celebrate in the movie theater. But there are many moments like that.

MCCARTHY: There are so many.

BARDEM: Like “Unfortunate Souls,” the way she sings that song, the whole number, it’s crazy good.

MCCARTHY: The first thing that struck me– First, it’s so beautiful, and I was like, “We’re underwater, I’m not seeing any of the work,” which is, I think, what you can always say when everything’s going right. You’re like, “I’m not seeing any of the work. I feel the emotion, I feel the story,” which means everybody’s doing, like, bionically good work.

But Halle, in “Part of Your World,” when she’s coming up – and everyone knows that song and everyone knows that moment from the original, but seeing her do it with a modern young woman’s gut in her, and realizing she’s not just singing about like, “I want to do different stuff.” It was about, like, “I am going to determine my own life,” and there was just moments when Halle’s face was so… you felt her heart and her courage, and I thought, “This is such a different way for so many people to see a Disney Princess. It’s with this determination, and like, “You will not assign me my life,” and I got so choked up, and I was so proud of her. That’s a big difference. It’s not a whole new number, it’s not a whole thing, but those little differences that Rob and John [DeLuca] and Disney made, and Halle did, it’s all through the movie. Those things making it relevant to today meant so much to me, and those were really the moments that just went right to my heart.

Dune is one of my favorite films of the last few years, what was it like working on the sequel?

BARDEM: Amazing. I mean, what another gift that life brought to me, and I don’t know what I did to deserve that.

MCCARTHY: You’re really good!

BARDEM: No, no, no, Denis Villeneuve, he’s like Rob Marshall, they are so lovely human beings with such a creative mastermind behind that. It’s a pleasure to be near them, so it’s a another gift.

The Little Mermaid is in theaters May 26. Check out our interview with Halle Bailey and Jonah Hauer-King below.