The Little Mermaid raised the bar for music in Disney’s animated features when it opened in theaters in 1989. Melissa McCarthy, playing sea-witch Ursula, tries her hand at one of its best-known songs, “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” in a new clip from The Little Mermaid. Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s classic Disney villain song, originally performed by Pat Carroll, occurs at the end of the film’s first act, as Ursula tempts Ariel (voiced by Jodi Benson in the animated original, played by Halle Bailey in the live-action version) into trading away her voice for a chance to live on land among humans.
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In the new clip, McCarthy sings the same tempting villain song. You can see the latest The Little Mermaid live-action remake clip below. If you want to hear more from the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, the entire soundtrack is now streaming.
How Melissa McCarthy Became Ursula for The Little Mermaid
Stepping into the shoes — or tentacles, as the case may be — of the first great villain of the Disney Renaissance is no small task for McCarthy. McCarthy told ComicBook.com that she approached it similarly to how she prepared for all her other roles.
“I think I prepared like I always do,” McCarthy said. “I kind of just start to dissect them. And I’ve talked about it before, I think a lot about people’s armor and what you kind of put on as your facade and what that really hides. And if you’re, you know, Ursula, she’s such a great broad, and in my heart, she always had a drink, and it was all that, but what is it really hiding?”
“She’s been isolated. She’s terribly lonely. She wasn’t allowed to have a family. She was rejected by her family. I think her mental health is not good. I mean, and going through the pandemic and being in lockdown, I think coming out of that, I was like, ‘I think we all understand how we’re not supposed to be solitary creatures and what that does to you.’ And suddenly she just really, I mean, I focused on all of it because once she became very real to me, I kind of can’t do one without the other. It’s not like ‘the voice’ and the ‘this’ anymore. It’s just kind of like ‘it’s Ursula.’ I don’t know if that sounds crazy.”
Director Rob Marshall said of McCarthy’s performance, “In the first scene when you meet her, you’re just seeing pieces. You’re just like a little tease, like her eyes, a little sort of reflection. You’re not seeing much of her … But then the second time you see her, you see the full octopus, she’s really an octopus. And it’s like, ‘Wow,’ it’s exciting to see. He continued, “The great thing about Melissa in this role, she’s fearless and so physical. So having her slide down the clamshell and doing all of that kind of thing or lunge or leap or dive, she did all of that. It was really thrilling.”
Melissa McCarthy on The Little Mermaid‘s Underwater Scenes
There’s an extra challenge with The Little Mermaid in that much of it takes place under the sea. McCarthy told ComicBook.com that she was taken aback by the process of filming those underwater films with CGI.
“I’ve never seen anything look like that,” McCarthy said. “I just can’t process how technically impossible that seemed to be and how you never thought about it, just watching you’re like, ‘Of course, I’m underwater.’ At one point, I’m like, ‘God, Halle’s eyes, just the water doesn’t seem to bother her at all. No! What are you talking about?’ I was like, ‘You’re nuts. You were there.’” She added, “Every hair is digital, all the movement. You know, we each had, what, like seven, eight people that were a part of our team to help keep that kind of undulating… It took a lot of people to make it look so effortless.”
The Little Mermaid‘s Live-action Cast
Rob Marshall directed The Little Mermaid. The film stars Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Daveed Diggs, Awkwafina, Jacob Tremblay, Noma Dumezweni, Javier Bardem, and Melissa McCarthy.
The Little Mermaid opens in theaters on May 26th. Tickets for The Little Mermaid are on sale now.
