‘The Little Mermaid’ Star Melissa McCarthy Had to Let Go to Perform Ursula’s Iconic Song: ‘I’m Awkward as a Person’
thewrap.comThe Little Mermaid” originally voiced by Pat Carroll, was an intimidating feat. “I so loved Pat Carroll,” McCarthy told TheWrap. “She crushed this in the original that if I’m going to do this I have to stop and just say, ‘all the love I have to you, homage to the beginning’ and then try to make mine my own.” That process started, as McCarthy said, by treating Ursula no different than any other character the actress has played. “I just kind of took her apart like any other character and started really think about what makes her tick.
What’s kind of a front and what is she really hiding? What’s the vulnerability, and what’s the loneliness and the isolation?” she said.
From the minute McCarthy talked to director Rob Marshall she started taking voice lessons to be able to pull off Ursula’s main musical number, “Poor Unfortunate Souls.” “I had never done anything like that,” McCarthy said.
While she started to feel changes in her voice and how she sang, the actress admitted she couldn’t get over her nerves. The problem, according to McCarthy, was that she’d get wrapped up in trying to sing a note just right, as opposed to performing a song in a way that would aid her performance.
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