Halle Bailey stars in the new live-action remake of The Little Mermaid and, if the gleeful reactions to the first trailer predict anything, it’s that the film—which hits theaters Friday—is going to mean a lot to young Black women and girls around the world.
“When I saw those [reactions] for the first time, I cried. I just cried,” Bailey—who plays Ariel—says in Glamour‘s May digital cover story. “I was uncontrollably sobbing because it really pulled on something in my heart. The fact that these babies are looking at me and feeling the emotions that they’re feeling is really humbling and beautiful thing.”
The representation means everything to Bailey, as well. Growing up, she says she and her sister, Chloe, idolized musicals like Beyonce and Destiny’s Child but rarely saw young women who looked like them on television or in movies.
Bailey says she was moved by the 2009 Disney animated film The Princess and the Frog, in which actor and singer Anika Noni Rose plays the titular princess, Tiana. “I know how much of that movie changed my whole perspective on life,” she says. “Wow, this is possible. Black princesses are possible. We deserve to take up these spaces too.”
The 23-year-old is rightfully proud of the 2023 version of The Little Mermaid*—which also stars Melissa McCarthy and Javier Bardem–*and the work she put into it, especially given it’s her first leading role. “I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve never seen myself on a big screen, so when I see myself [up] there, I’m just like, “Is that me? Huh? Did I really do that?”
That pride extends to the trailer’s early reception. “When I watch the babies react and they’re proud of me and they’re happy with how [the movie] looks, I’m just so happy with that reaction. It almost heals something within me and my spirit.”
