She had the most beautiful voice.

Eric seeing Ariel for the first time when she arrives at his castle / Eric seeing Ariel for the first time since he thought he lost her 😭 THE LITTLE MERMAID (2023) Dir. Rob Marshall

I still remember Howard [Ashman] coaching Sherri [Stoner, reference model for Ariel] on that first day, in the scene where the witch magically draws Ariel’s voice from her. Howard acted out for Sherri a way of physicalizing the loss of her voice. He showed her how her body would react as the witch’s disembodied magical hands pulled the voice from her throat. He acted out the torso drawn forward as the hands tugged, followed by the head, and then a sharper movement as the voice is pulled out of her. It was dance-like and very visual, clear and dramatic. And I still see what Howard showed Sherri when I view the actual drawn scene in the final film, animated by Leon Joosen. – John Musker

[Jodi] Benson appears briefly in The Little Mermaid (now playing in theaters) within Queen Selena (Noma Dumezweni) and Prince Eric's (Jonah Hauer-King) Caribbean kingdom. Having transformed into a human by this point in the film, Ariel (Halle Bailey) explores the land world for the first time and gets lost amid the vendors of a local marketplace.

She stumbles upon a woman, who offers her a plate of food. But wait! She's going to need something to eat that food. This woman, played by Benson, hands Ariel a fork, which the transformed mermaid then promptly uses to comb her hair. "It's literally like passing the torch," Marshall says. In Scuttle speak, it's like passing the dinglehopper.

get to know me ✧ favorite disney movies [2/∞]

@pscentral gift exchange: The Little Mermaid (1989) for @swiftletinthecloud

THE LITTLE MERMAID (2023) dir. Rob Marshall