Chance the Rapper as Simba? Well it could have happened, according to the rapper.
Access chatted with the Grammy winner at the “The Lion King” premiere in Hollywood where he detailed his obsession for the Disney classic and explained, “I tried out for the role of Simba, little known fact but I didn’t get it.”
“They gave it to some brand-new actor named, Donald Glover,” Chance joked. But he does owe his small role in the film to Glover.
“Donald is like my big brother and took me out on my first national tour and he knew that I loved the movie so he called up Jon Favreau and said, ‘Put Chance in the movie.’ He figured out a way to do it and here I am.”
The role that Chance plays in the real-life Disney film is actually a new one that you may not recognize from the original 1994 animated version. Chance told us that he plays, “bush baby,” but we’ll have to wait and see the movie for more details about his character.
“This is a new thing. So, there’s not a lot of changes to the overall film, other than it looking amazing,” Chance said. “But, when Jon was making the film originally, before I got asked to be an actor, a voice actor on it, Jon would have me, every time I came out to L.A. to be a, ‘nostalgia consultant’ on it as somebody who really really loved the film, like, he would show me different things and overall there aren’t too many changes to it.”
Chance’s 3-year-old daughter, Kensli has gotten a few sneak peeks at the highly-anticipated movie, which stars Beyonce as Nala and Donald Glover as Simba.
“My daughter loves the move, she’s seen it,” Chance revealed. “She knows that I have a really really small part, so she’s not going to be let down.”
“The Lion King” hits theaters on July 18th with some already calling it a visual masterpiece after seeing the movie at the world premiere in Hollywood.