The True Story Behind Disney’s The Little Mermaid

It’s hard to believe that The Little Mermaid came out in 1989, but here we are years later, and it’s still an all-time classic film. And now, it’s getting rereleased today with a splashy Diamond Edition debut on Blu-ray. Naturally, we jumped (swam? dived?) at the chance to host some of the original voices themselves—Ariel (Jodi Benson), Sebastian (Samuel E. Wright), and Chef Louis (Rene Auberjonois)—at Glamour HQ to talk about the creation of The Little Mermaid, Disney magic, and more. Read on:

Glamour: Whenever we write about Disney princesses, it always does well with our readers—even though most of the women we’re writing to are in their 20s or 30s. Why do you think The Little Mermaid has remained popular through the years?

Jodi Benson: I think mostly because of Howard Ashman. He brought the Broadway flavor of the music to it and mixed it up together. But with this story—and then combining it with Howard, bringing in Alan Menken and the music—it’s classic. It was just perfect timing.

Rene Auberjonois: Well, from my perspective—having a longer view on the Disney thing—this was the beginning of a new golden age of animation, music, and story and specifically because of the female character being so bold and strong. I think that this film just keeps speaking and singing to kids and people, and obviously you all, because it’s still speaking to you. It’s just a gift.

Samuel E. Wright: Sometimes in the world, there’s a magical collection of talented people. It was all magical because it was a hit-and-miss thing. If we hadn’t succeeded, that was going to be it. We all felt that need to do the best we possibly could, and because we were actors and not just voice talent, we knew how to bring that to our work and left it up to the talent of some great animators. I don’t think we could ever recapture that again the way that happened. I think that’s why it lasted because it’s got that magic to it—literally that Disney magic.

Glamour: Where do you think your characters would be today, years later?

Jodi: Well, we’ve done a Little Mermaid 2 and a Little Mermaid 3—a prequel and a sequel—so my character’s married, half-mermaid and human, has a child, and probably has a grandchild by now.

Samuel: I think Hans Christian Andersen would either be pleased or spinning in his grave right now after what we’ve done with his wonderful work. It has gone places that no man has gone before. They’ve done a spin-off where Sebastian and myself have become separate people now. There’s Sam Wright, and then his friend Sebastian the Crab, so I get to talk to myself a lot.

Rene: Well, I’m in the kitchen.

Jodi: Still bringing in le dinner.

Samuel: Trying to cook. [Laughs]

Glamour: Do you ever get recognized by your voices?

Samuel: Even when it’s not a Jamaican accent. [To Jodi] I’m sure they recognize your voice.

Jodi: Well, it’s funny because they know a lot of us by our faces now, after 25-plus years. But I get a lot of people on the phone—with Delta airlines or doing stuff with the kids on the phone—and a soccer mom will say, “It sounds really familiar.” It’s funny, but it’s very sweet. The kids, they’re just so cute.

Samuel: It can get a little confusing at times because I’m six foot three, and when the parent says “Look sweetheart, it’s Sebastian the Crab!” they look like this. [Makes a confused face.]

Rene: Well, I definitely don’t get recognized by my voice, though I do a lot of animated voices. But obviously, the chef not only doesn’t look like me, but doesn’t sound like me. It’s amazing to me that if you go on IMDB—I mean, I’m old and I’ve done a lot of characters all my life—and that’s right up at the top. I do a lot of Star Trek conventions, and people will bring their children up and sometimes the photos will have a photo of the chef and Sebastian and the parents will say, “This is him, he sings…” And they just absolutely refuse to believe it.

Glamour: When you went in and recorded the movie, did you get direction on the voice or did you give input? How did it all come together?

Samuel: That was one of the most interesting facets of it because you see us sitting here together as if we worked together. We didn’t work together. Sebastian is tiny, and as I said, I’m six-foot-three. The dynamics of me talking to Jodi standing in a room is completely different than being far away from her. You see what I mean? It sounds completely different. The microphone had to be placed higher, so all of my acting is done up toward the microphone. It’s one of the hardest jobs in the world doing voice-over animation because you don’t know as an actor what you’re doing, and they just keep saying, “Do it again. That’s not it; do it again.” Finally, after 3,000 times, they say, “That’s it!” And you go, “Phew.” But they go, “Do it again!” It takes a lot of patience and love for what you’re doing. But obviously we loved it because we keep doing it.

Jodi: The neat thing about our project that’s never happened since is that we all met together on the first day like a Broadway show. We all sat in a big circle together and read through the script.

Rene: I wasn’t there! Where were you when you did this?

Jodi: In Los Angeles. Howard sang everything, Alan played everything, and all the powers that be were there. And then my first two days of recording, I did record with everybody through plexiglass. I got a whole day to record with everybody. Then the next days, three or four days after, I was by myself, but Howard was always in the booth with me. He would come out and stand right next to me because he knew every line, every nuance, everything that he wanted from every character, he played everybody, and he had already recorded “Part of Your World.” He played everybody brilliantly, so once we got done recording it all together, he came in and played every part for me. But it’s never been that way since. I’ve always been by myself for every movie and TV show.

Rene: See, I feel like a kind of intern over here because these people were throughout the entire film. I don’t want to take away the magic in any sense, but I came in and met everybody, the powers that be, and they taught me the song, we put it on tape on a disc—not on a disc, it was long enough ago that it was on cassette—and I, for a week, drove around L.A. and would listen to the song. Then I went to the studio, I sang the song twice, and I left. A few years later, I was doing a Broadway musical at the time and the film came out. I went to a late-night show of it. It had just came out, so there weren’t children in the audience and not even that many adults. I sat there and this thing exploded onto the screen. The only thing I can say, in terms of myself as an audience seeing something, it was like seeing something I had nothing to do with. So two and a half years later to sit there and watch this thing come to life in front of me… Usually when I’m in a film and I go to see myself, I’m very nervous about what I’m going to look like. Am I gonna make a fool of myself? But The Little Mermaid had nothing to do with me. It was this fabulous, insane character chasing this brilliant character around stage. It was just an unbelievable experience, and it’s going to be great for a whole bunch of new kids to be exposed to this thing.

Samuel: Someone asked me once, “How many times have you actually seen the film?” I think I’ve seen it maybe three or four times. It’s not because I don’t enjoy the film. It’s because I experience the film quite different. Just like Rene said, we’re actors. When I see the film, I’m experiencing the day, that segment, because when we did it, it was done in segments over a period of time. They’d come in, and we’d do something, and then they’d go and draw it and animate it based on what we did in the studio. But I know exactly what he meant because the other day when we saw the film, it exploded from the opening scene. It was something, it was great.

Glamour: Is that always how it works: The actors record and then the animation happens after?

Samuel: I don’t know if that’s how they do it now, but I think they still do it that way.

Rene: That’s quality animation. What’s brilliant about Disney is that these characters come from the actors, the voices. The first drawing they showed me of the chef, which was just a sketch, evolved a great deal. But when I saw the character as it evolved, a lot of it had to do with the interpretation of the character that these artists brought to it. That’s quality animation.

Glamour: What did Ariel look like at the beginning?

Jodi: She looked like Barbie. She actually had blond hair and she was perfect. She was very mature looking. I remember seeing the sketches and thinking, “Oh, she doesn’t look 16.” But Glen Keane, who was my animator, completely changed that after we started recording. So, she’s a mixture of myself and his wife, Linda. She’s just much more real looking. The blond had to go. They videotaped everyone, and the animators listened and watched and they started sketching.

Glamour: I can’t even imagine Ariel being anything but a redhead.

Jodi: They fought that. That was a big fight for a while.

Samuel: Sebastian was very strange for me because when I first saw the sketch for Sebastian, he looked like he was made in the style of the old Jamaican actor Geoffrey Holder, a big tall guy, a Broadway choreographer. Sebastian had a little, tiny claws and a big, fat body, and little, teeny eyes. I was trying to imitate him for the first year. Then I was told to come a meeting with the animators. I didn’t want to go to lunch with seven crazy animators, you have no idea. So we’re at this big table, and at the end is a guy who looks a lot like Walt Disney. I had never met Roy, his nephew, so I didn’t know who it was. Are they playing a joke? Are they gonna fire me at this dinner? So we finish eating, and the guy at the end of the table said, “What do we got here? What does he look like?” My animator was sitting next to me, and he drew this thing and handed it to the next guy and passed it down. Each guy looked at it and laughed. And when they got to the guy who looked like Disney, he went into a full-blown guffaw and said, “OK,” slammed his hand on his head, “Let’s go.” That was Sebastian. That’s why he looks like me—they drew my head on top of a crab!

Glamour: Out of the Disney characters beside your own, who is your favorite or who do you relate to the most?

Jodi: I personally think Ursula is by far the greatest villainess ever because I think Pat Carroll did a brilliant job. But she’ll tell you all she did is imitate Howard. He did an amazing Ursula. He was so funny.

Rene: I’ve heard very serious film people talking about Ursula, and the consensus is very strong that she is one of, if not the greatest, Disney villains. That’s saying something because there have been some great ones. She’s a scary character, but in a wonderful way. The whole thing about being scared in Disney films is that it’s important for kids to be able to confront things like that and then see that there’s a way through it, which is what Ariel shows them and Sebastian helps them understand. Villains are very important for kids learning how to deal with the world.

Glamour: Speaking of Ursula, when she took Ariel’s voice her piece of advice was, “Don’t underestimate the importance of body language.” What flirting advice do you have doesn’t involve talking?

Jodi: Well, Ariel has a way to blow up her bangs The famous hair flip. What does Sebastian tell her?

Samuel: You have to bat your eyes and puff up your lips like this!__

Here they are today!

__Who’s your favorite character from The Little Mermaid?

Photos: Disney