Melissa McCarthy "Begged" To Play Ursula In "The Little Mermaid"

Melissa McCarthy “begged” for the part of Ariel in “The Little Mermaid.”

The 52-year-old actress stars as Ursula the sea witch in Disney’s new live-action adaptation of the iconic 1989 cartoon classic, but she admits she wasn’t considered for the role until she put herself out there.

“I wasn’t up on the list, I wasn’t on the list, I wasn’t list adjacent, and I was like, ‘I’m not going to get it,’ but I knew I had to at least make a play for it because I was like, ‘I’ll be so mad at myself forever if I didn’t even try to get, you know, turned down,'” she told Collider.

“And I couldn’t call Rob because I didn’t have his number, but I knew a guy who knew a guy, and I just said, ‘Can I please come and talk to you?'” ‘Can I just tell you how important Ursula is to me?’

“And then I never expected to get it. So, rather than being asked, I begged to do it, and I’m pleased I did.”

McCarthy is overjoyed with the end product and claims she couldn’t see “any of the work” done by the CGI section to bring things to life.

“The first thing that struck me – first, it’s so beautiful, and I was like, ‘We’re underwater, I’m not seeing any of the work,'” she explained.

“‘I’m not seeing any of the work,’ you say. I feel the emotion, I feel the story,’ which indicates everyone is doing bionic work.”

The actress also praised Halle Bailey, 23, who plays Ariel, for recreating the legendary ‘Part of Your World’ performance and going beyond singing about wanting to “do different stuff.”

“It was like, ‘I am going to define my own life,’ and there were just moments when Halle’s face was so… You could feel her heart and courage, and I thought, ‘This is such a different way for so many people to see a Disney Princess’.

“It was with this determination, like, ‘You will not assign me my life,’ and I got all choked up, and I was so proud of her.” That’s a significant change.”

“It’s not a completely new number, it’s not a completely new thing, but those little differences that Rob and John [DeLuca] and Disney made, and Halle did, they’re all throughout the movie.”

“Those things making it relevant to today meant so much to me, and those were really the moments that just went right to my heart.”

Melissa McCarthy “Begged” To Play Ursula In “The Little Mermaid”

Melissa McCarthy “begged” for the part of Ariel in “The Little Mermaid.”

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