Halle Bailey is feeling the love and pride that comes with portraying Ariel in the live-action “The Little Mermaid.”
Since the first footage of Bailey as Ariel surfaced, many young Black girls have felt seen and represented, with parents sharing reactions of their kids lighting up with joy in seeing someone that looks like them in the role.
“When I saw those (videos) for the first time, I just cried,” Bailey said in a new interview with Glamour published on May 23. “I was sobbing uncontrollably. The fact that these babies are looking at me and feeling the emotions that they’re feeling is a really humbling, beautiful thing.”
She added, “When I watch the babies react and they’re proud of me, it almost heals something within me and my spirit. I get really emotional when I think about it and when I see the reactions. It’s just lovely.”
In 2019, director Rob Marshall requested that Bailey audition for the lead role after seeing her perform at the Grammys earlier that year. At the time she was only 18. Fast forward five years and she’s front and center as Ariel in one of the year’s most anticipated films.
“I was catapulted into this new world,” the actor and singer said, sharing how she fell in love with the 1989 animated film when she was five. “I remember Ariel being the reason I wanted to swim. When I saw her, (I was) like, ‘She’s so beautiful; I want to be a mermaid too.’ She didn’t look like me, but I was OK with that because it was what I was used to at the time.”
Bailey recalled how “The Princess and the Frog” changed her perspective on life, thinking, “Wow, this is possible. Black princesses are possible. We deserve to take up these spaces too.”
Bailey also puts her own stamp on the character “by showing more of her vulnerability,” she said, but also in how she physically looks.
“(Ariel still) has red hair, because that’s a very iconic part of her, but I really did admire the fact that because I’m a Black woman and I have locs," she said, adding that the producers wanted to incorporate that into Ariel’s look.
She credits the look coming together to hairstylist Camille Friend, who dyed Bailey’s roots red and wrapped her locs with hair the same shade. Kat Ali oversaw her makeup.
“They’re both women of color, so I felt very comfortable,” Bailey said. “They know how to take care of me and my hair and makeup. I’ve been on sets before where that’s not the case.”
The experience has been life changing to say the least, with the actor expressing, “I’ve never seen myself on a big screen, so when I see myself there, I’m just like, ‘Is that me? Did I really do that?’”
Yes, she did.