DIVE INTO HALLE BAILEY’S WORLD

Halle Bailey is about to become a household name. Thanks to a star turn as Ariel in the upcoming live-action Disney film The Little Mermaid, Bailey’s celebrity status will be firmly cemented by the end of the year.

When Halle Bailey received the call to audition for Disney’s live-action retelling of The Little Mermaid four years ago, she didn’t assume it would be for the lead. Despite the fact the singer-actor had been writing music since she was eight years old, opened for Beyoncé on the European leg of her Formation Tour at 16 and received five Grammy nominations before reaching the age of 21, Bailey couldn’t picture herself playing Ariel.

“The version of Ariel in my head was the one we all know and love: pale skin and bright red hair. She didn’t look like me,”

Bailey shared how she reacted when she first learned she was going to be stepping into the fin shoes. “My first reaction was just sobbing honestly. I was just crying. I think we had celebrated my sister’s birthday the day before. So, we had rented an Airbnb, we were coming home, unloading everything, I was in work mode. And then I got this call from Rob.” She didn’t answer right away though, but not because she didn’t want the part.

“I don’t answer unknown numbers, so I just saw it, and I’m like whatever. Not gonna answer it.” Relatable right? Luckily someone else told her she should answer it. “Then my baby brother comes running to me like, “Answer your phone, answer your phone.” [laughs] So I answered it, and then Rob was like, “Hello. I’m looking for Ariel.” I was like, oh my gosh, and was just crying for the whole day.”

However, her casting led to backlash – with some critics unhappy that Halle Bailey, a Black woman, was cast as Ariel. Bailey responded, saying that she remained focused on the incredible role and the opportunity to play a classic Disney princess. “We’ve always learned to just keep our heads up no matter the situation,” she said at the time. “No matter what anybody has to say about you… just keep pushing.” Last September, when the studio released The Little Mermaid’s teaser trailer, videos of some Black and brown children – reacting to the reveal of Ariel 2.0 went viral. “She’s like me!” was the shared sentiment among the girls and boys who not only saw themselves in Bailey’s modern mermaid, with her shimmering brown skin and flowing red locks, but who also felt seen by the larger world around them.

“Even just thinking about it makes me emotional,” Bailey says, “Because I still feel like that inside. I feel like that five-year-old. And it made me so filled with love that they know they’re beautiful and that they can be princesses too.” “It’s that piece I didn’t have. It’s so healing to see these other babies get that and be able to know that when they get older this will just be normal, you know?”

Best known until now as one half of the pop R&B duo Chloe x Halle – with her older sister, Chlöe, 24 – Bailey caught the eye of The Little Mermaid director Rob Marshall after she and Chlöe performed Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack’s duet “Where Is The Love” at the 2019 Grammys. “[Producer] John DeLuca and I were watching, and I said, ‘John, who is that? She looks like an angel,’” Marshall recalls. The turned director, whose 2002 feature debut, Chicago, garnered six Academy Awards, is widely credited for reviving moviegoer interest in seeing Broadway on the big screen. “I mean, Halle’s so beautiful, but she also has an otherworldly sensibility. This was so important for a character that’s a mermaid and a teenage girl, who has to have this combination of strength, passion and courage, as well as a kind of naivety and innocence.” For The Little Mermaid, director

Rob Marshall was looking for a star that was both dynamic on screen and could hold their own with the classic Disney songs that are so known and loved from the film. He said in a statement, “After an extensive search, it was abundantly clear that Halle possesses that rare combination of spirit, heart, youth, innocence, and substance—plus a glorious singing voice—all intrinsic qualities necessary to play this iconic role.”

Halle Bailey is now 22, but her career began decades ago. When she was just three years old, the actress had minor roles in films like Last Holiday. But music was the star’s key focus. She grew up in a musical family and began a YouTube channel with sister Chloe when she was 11 and her sister was 13. Coining themselves ‘Chloe x Halle’, their first video was a cover of Beyoncé’s ‘The Best Thing I Never Had’. They quickly went viral and appeared on The Ellen Show in April 2012, before winning the fifth season of The Next Big Thing on Radio Disney that December.

While Chloe x Halle was already a hugely successful YouTube channel, their real rise to fame came when the Queen B herself, Beyoncé, noticed their cover of her song ‘Pretty Hurts’ and promptly signed the duo to her label, Parkwood Entertainment, in 2015. At the time, Chloe was 18 and Halle 16. From there, Chloe x Halle went from strength to strength. Their first EP, Sugar Symphony, was released in April 2016, and they even performed at the White House and South by Southwest Festival. They are widely considered to be Beyoncé’s prodigies, opening for the European leg of The Formation World Tour and now in a five-year contract with Parkwood.

Most recently, Chloe x Halle received multiple nominations at the 2020 Grammy Awards, including Best Progressive R&B Album, Best R&B Song and Best Traditional R&B Performance.

It’s been a year and a half since the project wrapped filming. During that time, Halle’s had a chance to meditate on the lessons learned from this transformative period of her life. But she’s also used the breather to have some fun. Her days have been filled with yoga, cooking, song writing, guitar practice and cuddles with her cat, Poseidon, named by her brother after Ariel’s grandfather. “I’m kind of an introverted person – not a party girl or anything. Since being home, I like having time to do the things that I want to do. It’s this feeling of freedom.”

All of Halle’s creative energy is being channelled into her first solo album, which she’s hoping to release after The Little Mermaid comes out. “The music I’m making now is happy and about love, but it’s also about vulnerability and how scared you can be when you know that somebody now has power over your heart.” During the writing process, she adds, “it’s been really cool to see this theme of anxious attachment, beauty in vulnerability, on paper.”

The project is still taking shape and she’s hesitant to spill more details. It’s not been long since Halle sat down with her mentor Beyoncé, (who, she admits, still occasionally leaves her feeling “starstruck”) for a super-exclusive listening party for her solo work. “She hadn’t heard anything with me on my own before, so it was a really big moment for me. She was just so proud, so complimentary. It’s a beautiful thing when a creative you look up to tells you that you’re doing a good job. It means the world.”