Halle Bailey, whose name is confusingly close to Oscar winning actress Halle Berry, plays Ariel in the upcoming live action remake of The Little Mermaid. That’s not all she does though. She also handles some of the singing parts in the movie, and Bailey recently reacted to the release of her version of the classic “Part of Your World” song.
The song is the first released track from the upcoming soundtrack to the movie, which releases on May 19. The actress shared the song “performed by me” with a graphic featuring the actress in character, underwater and staring at the surface.
The song was written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, who handled the music and lyrics, respectively. It’s available now not only on Spotify but on Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music, where there’s a visualizer to go along with it.
Disney also released a number of new character posters for the film, including a closer look at Ursula (Melissa McCarthy) and her questionable makeup.
Bailey previously told Entertainment Tonight that people were going to be very surprised by McCarthy’s take on the character.
“People are gonna be so amazed [by] her job [playing] Ursula,” she said. “First of all, she’s a beautiful human being, so talented, and the way she just consumes Ursula is so beautiful. I’m just so proud of her and I can’t wait for people to see it.”
She also shared that McCarthy didn’t just play Ursula as an evil queen, but added a layer of something else to the character.
“She has this very kind of maternal trickiness to her when it comes to tricking Ariel in the film, so I got to be consumed in her world and falling into her spell,” she said. “It wasn’t so much like mean, mean. It was like [Ariel] looking for a maternal figure.”
The Little Mermaid swims into theaters on May 26.