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11 Times Disney Literally Stole A Celebrity’s Face To Make One Of Their Characters

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1. Tom Cruise was the inspiration for Aladdin’s appearance in Aladdin. Animators originally wanted the character to appear much smaller and more dweeby, but they abandoned that plan because they didn’t think Jasmine would be attracted to him.

According to a documentary about the making of Aladdin, the animators thought a less heroic-looking Aladdin would help “give him something to really fight against.” However, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the chairman of Walt Disney Studios at the time, said he just didn’t believe Jasmine would fall for a character like him, saying, “I found the character of Jasmine kinda blows him away. I don’t understand why she goes with him. I understand why he goes with her — that’s easy. She’s wonderful.”

While trying to improve Aladdin’s appearance, Katzenberg said, “Guys, you’ve got Julia Roberts and Michael J. Fox. They don’t fit together. You need Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts. They fit together. You need more Tom Cruise.” The animators then took that advice literally.

2. Tangled director Byron Howard revealed that Mother Gothel’s appearance was inspired by Cher. She apparently had the right “exotic” look that the animators were searching for.

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Cher even commented on how similar Mother Gothel looks to her, and when asked if she’d star in a live-action version of Tangled, she said, “I also believe in ‘what belongs to you, comes to you,’ so maybe it will.” Donna Murphy, the actor who voiced the character, also partly served as inspiration for the character.

3. According to Paige O’Hara, who voiced Belle in Beauty and the Beast, the character originally looked very different. In fact, she later compared her to an older Angelina Jolie (which was obviously just a coincidence, as Angelina was only 16 years old when the movie was released). After Disney reworked the character, they decided to model Belle after Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, and Natalie Wood.

According to Paige O’Hara, the original concept art had Belle looking more glamorous than relatable, saying, “I didn’t see how anybody would identify with that person. You’d look at her and put her on a pedestal. She was a little too perfect.” Animators then looked at a bunch of Old Hollywood stars (and Paige herself) to create a character who “viewers could connect with” more.

4. When creating The Little Mermaid, animators based Ariel’s appearance on a young Alyssa Milano. Oddly enough, she wasn’t even told, and she didn’t find out about this until a year after the movie was released.

Milano went into detail about how cool (and sort of weird) the experience was, saying, “Apparently Disney drew Ariel’s face from pictures of me. Um, yes. That’s really cool and lovely. Uh, this is something that I didn’t know while it was going on, and then I would say about a year after the film came out, they asked me to do sort of a making-of, behind-the-scenes special on it, and they told me then, which I thought was really cool.”

5. Two different Disney characters were actually inspired by musician Louis Armstrong. The first was Scat Cat from The Aristocats, and the second was Louis from The Princess and the Frog, which was released 39 years later.

Armstrong was actually asked to voice the then-titled character “Satchmo Cat” in The Aristocats, which was based on his own nickname. He had to turn the role down for health reasons, so Scatman Crothers replaced him, and they changed the character’s name to Scat Cat.

6. Animators really struggled when trying to come up with the perfect look for Ursula in The Little Mermaid, and they didn’t feel satisfied until someone drew a character who was inspired by drag queen Divine. An early iteration of the character also had Ursula looking more like Joan Collins, but as a manta ray.

And to get Ursula’s movements just right, animator Kathy Zielinski rewatched Sunset Boulevard and studied Gloria Swanson’s over-the-top and exaggerated movements as Norma Desmond: “I studied the way she would move and the way she would react to William Holden. That really helped out a lot. It would inspire me when I tried to put some life into that character.”

7. A lot of Tiana’s physical features and character in The Princess and the Frog were based on Anika Noni Rose, who voiced and sang for her in the movie.

According to Mark Henn, one of Disney’s supervising animators, some of Tiana’s looks were also based on Jaimie Milner, an intern in the post-production department (they even took pictures of her to help get Tiana’s hair just right). But when it came time to actually develop more prominent features and the likeness of the character, the animators looked directly at Anika Noni Rose. For example, they gave Tiana dimples and even made her left-handed because Rose has dimples and is left-handed.

8. The vultures in The Jungle Book were inspired by the Beatles. The band was originally set to voice the characters and sing a song in the 1967 movie too, but rumor has it that John Lennon vetoed the offer, saying Disney would be better off hiring Elvis Presley instead.

When Disney remade a live-action version of the film in 2016, director Jon Favreau tried to finally get the Beatles to appear as the vultures, saying, “I did talk about trying to get Paul [McCartney] and Ringo [Starr] into the film, because they wanted the Beatles for the original, but I couldn’t get them. We came to the idea too late. Maybe if there’s a sequel…”

9. Jessica Rabbit was inspired by a mixture of several Old Hollywood actors, but mostly Rita Hayworth. Richard Williams, the animation director for the movie, revealed that his team was tasked with creating “the ultimate male fantasy,” so he took inspiration from some iconic leading ladies of Old Hollywood, saying, ”I tried to make her like Rita Hayworth,” whom the press referred to as “The Love Goddess” in the 1940s.

Williams revealed that the character’s hair was also inspired by Veronica Lake. While brainstorming, director Robert Zemeckis also asked, “What about the look Lauren Bacall had?” Basically, they grabbed inspiration from several Old Hollywood actors.

10. Most of the looks and movements of Dr. Facilier from The Princess and the Frog were based on Michael Jackson and Usher.

Animator Bruce W. Smith also revealed that he took elements from his favorite actors to create Dr. Facilier, specifically noting the “elasticity” of Jim Carrey and talent of Jack Lemmon. But when it came to actually animating the character, he was mostly inspired by Michael Jackson and Usher: “I realized he had to be very thin, and I had to be able to move him across the screen. I thought about guys like Michael Jackson and Usher and the types of moves they’d have as they would sort of scurry across the screen.”

Smith also said that Dr. Facilier was basically a love-child of his two favorite Disney villains: Captain Hook and Cruella de Vil. He sort of mashed them together, drawing from Captain Hook’s funniness and Cruella de Vil’s elegance.

11. And finally, Genie from Aladdin was literally created for Robin Williams, and they specifically wrote the character with him in mind. As a way to convince Robin to accept the role, Disney actually animated lines from one of his old comedy albums as if the Genie was the one performing them.

Eric Goldberg, the supervising animator for Genie, said that the character embodied Robin Williams so much because he’d often go off-script and improvise entire scenes: “We didn’t expect him to come back with all the celebrity impressions the first time we recorded him, so we re-adapted. We incorporated Robin’s riffs into the fabric of the film.” After Robin Williams’s death in 2014, Goldberg tearfully reminisced about their relationship together, saying, “He was a real-life Genie, and, boy, did he grant our wishes.”

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