The Little Mermaid: New Look at Melissa McCarthy’s Ursula Surfaces

Ursula the sea witch (Melissa McCarthy) gets her tentacles on poor, unfortunate soul princess Ariel (Halle Bailey) in new footage from The Little Mermaid. A making-of featurette from the upcoming live-action remake of the beloved 1989 animated film contains a clip of McCarthy as the villainous Disney diva, who is “hilarious and terrifying,” co-star Awkwafina says of the two-time Oscar nominated Bridesmaids and Can You Ever Forgive Me? actress. “I’ve been watching you for a long time now, dearie. We got a deal?” Ursula asks of Ariel, offering a “premium package” that comes at a cost: her voice.

Watch the clip in the featurette below.

“There’s a drag queen that lives in me,” McCarthy recently told EW about her take on the original animated character, who was inspired by the drag queen Divine. “I’m always right on the verge of going full-time with her… To keep the humor and the sadness and the edginess to Ursula is everything I want in a character — and frankly, everything I want in a drag queen.”

The scorned sea witch is “the villain, but there’s such an edge to her,” McCarthy continued. “She’s been put in this lair. It’s like she’s had too many martinis alone. Her friends are eels. That is a woman who has seen it, been in it, dug her way back out. All my references are terrible, but I kept thinking, ‘Many a Pall Mall has this woman had.’”

Bailey and McCarthy are part of a cast that includes Jonah Hauer-King (Little Women) as the surface world’s Prince Eric, Daveed Diggs (Hamilton) as the crabby Sebastian, Awkwafina (Marvel’s Shang-Chi) as diving bird Scuttle, Jacob Tremblay (Room) as Ariel’s best fish friend Flounder, and Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) as Ariel’s stern father, King Triton of Atlantica. Rob Marshall(Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Into the Woods, Mary Poppins Returns) directs; Marshall also produces with Marc Platt (La La Land), co-composer Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton), and John DeLuca (Nine).

The Little Mermaid is the story of Ariel, a beautiful andspirited young mermaid with a thirst for adventure. The youngest of KingTriton’s daughters and the most defiant, Ariel longs to find out moreabout the world beyond the sea, and while visiting the surface, fallsfor the dashing Prince Eric. While mermaids are forbidden to interactwith humans, Ariel must follow her heart. She makes a deal with the evilsea witch, Ursula, which gives her a chance to experience life on land,but ultimately places her life — and her father’s crown — in jeopardy.

The new movie swims into theaters May 26th.