Funniest Mufasa Interview Yet 🦁 Behind the Scenes at Their Zoo Interview

That's my dog right there, that's my friend. She's quick! It's time I tell you a story. A story! So glad I brought some crickets. Rafiki, keep going! The story about a prince who would come to be known as Scar and an orphan named Mufasa. Two brothers who set off on a dangerous journey to find a new home. The very first thing I want to talk to you all about is what was the first time you saw The Lion King, the original? I want to hear if you have any memories of those experiences. I don't remember the very first time, but I do remember sitting on my mother's bed, on the edge of her bed, watching her TV on top of her dresser, and just being amazed and watching VHS over and over again until it was worn out, like an old sweater, and just having a great time and singing the songs. So it's a full circle moment now to be a part of it. Actually, I remember playing the video game on Genesis Sega, but I also remember... I also had this video game. It was so good! The video game was amazing! I had to rent it over and over again. I didn't own it, but it was very hard though. I never beat the game. But I also remember... We'll say, you know what, we can edit it and say, you did beat the game! And I beat the entire game! And I was so proud of myself! I'm so happy! Thank you so much! But that was my memory! That's awesome! I think my earliest memory is watching it on VHS. And just watching it again and again and again. It was one of those things that I... Probably my most revisited Disney film that I had on VHS. I would watch it in the summer. I'd watch it in the winter when I was freezing. I mean, I swear, you know, I watched it at any time. Are there any parts or songs or anything that stand out? In the original? Yeah, yeah. Be Prepared. I love how Scar sings Be Prepared. And I also love how the hyenas are like his background singers. I think it's just beautiful. That's so cool. So there's a song in the movie called We Go Together. And so I thought it'd be fun to play a little game. We love it. Oh, you like games! Okay, this is wonderful news for me. I'm going to throw out something, and you're going to say what goes together with it. We'll just go down the line. So first thing, I'm from Regal. So popcorn. Butter. She said both. You don't know. It's been a long day. But it's good. That's a good answer. Thank you. You can go next. Thank you. Oh, we have to say the same word. Oh, I got you. Icy. Popcorn cinema. Awesome. Friendship. Love. Rivalry. Trust. See why he's the villain. I'm just in the mindset right now. That's all your method acting. Yeah, I'm still trying to shake it off. I'm terrible. How about family? Food. Foundation. Oh, I love it. Let's do one more. Lion cubs. Roar. Taka. Simba. Yeah. I love that you're the only like altruistic. You're like, something else. And you're like, ask me. So perfect. Well, awesome. Speaking of roar, okay. Let's do something. So first, actually first question. Did you have to produce your own roar at any point? Or did you like find yourself wanting to do that when you're reading the script? Or because I'm assuming it's sound effects, but also do you have your own roars? Interesting. So I never roared in the studio. But the closest thing I did to roaring was when you have to do, there's something you have to do in the context of ADR, which is like efforts. And when, you know, Mufasa's fighting, I had to do efforts. And nobody asked me to, but I was trying to make the effort sound like a lion was fighting. So that's the closest I got to it. Can you explain for the viewers what efforts are? Yeah. So an effort is, I'm going to probably do a terrible job, but an effort is. Demonstrate it. Yeah, no, demonstrate it. I'm waiting. Demonstrate efforts, man. Efforts are basically, you know, when you might sigh or when you might yawn or when you might breathe, when you're sprinting or when you get exhausted or when you're defending yourself. The sounds that you make. I don't understand though. And I'm so glad that you're going to demonstrate. That's my dog. Well. Efforts are a little bit like. Like that. Exactly like that. With the faces and everything. They come from over there in the distance. They understood me. The animals understand me. And they're giving you like side eyes. Right. Oh, try what? A roar? Sure. You don't have to. Okay. Can I? Okay. I'll do it. And you guys can judge me. Okay. Should I do that or should I do like a. I want to hear a roar. I'll do a roar. Whoa. Do you like it? It was good. I did. Cool. Any notes? No. No notes. You ate. Oh my God. Print it. Barry would love you. Yeah. Okay. Barry would say, got it, got it, good. She's the one that I thought was going to replace me. Yeah. And then they were like, oh no, you're too much chaos. No, thank you. Okay. So the, I guess the, the last thing I will ask is why should people see this film on the big screen? I'd say as a fan, the reason why I'm excited to, I was excited to be a part of it. And I was excited when I sat down to watch it is just to get some backstory on these characters we've loved for 30 years. I always wondered why is Scar so mad? What's his problem, man? Why would you kill your brother, man? And we learn why a little bit. A little bit. Okay. Sure. And so, yeah, it's just fun to get to know these characters and know more about them. I think that there's been a considerable amount of misinformation around. Not misinformation. Propaganda. Yes. Around who Uncle Scar was. He was loving. He was touching. He was open. He was someone who invited strangers, orphans maybe, even into his home. And I don't know. Some people appreciate it. Some people don't. But we'll all have a soundtrack to sing along with. Amazing. I couldn't add. I couldn't add to that. That was beautiful. So just to be clear, we're not in this story. There's a lot of stories with all of us. Tell one of those. Can we jump right into it with a game? Are you ready for a game? Sure. Amazing. So in the movie, there is a song, We Go Together. Yes. And so we at Regal would love to play a game. What goes together with blank? Okay, great. Word association game. Love it. Okay. And you know what? I'm not even going to tell you who goes first. You choose. We'll both go at the same time. Yeah, yeah. Say the same thing at the same time. We generally do. Right. Okay. What goes together with candy? Ooh, popcorn. Popcorn. Oh, it wasn't simultaneous. It's not a contest. You can do it now. I mean, this is a video. We can just edit it. Let's keep it raw. Vulnerable. I love it. I love this. Yeah. What goes together with a movie night? A movie night? Mm-hmm. Popcorn. Is the answer popcorn? We can make popcorn the answer. Exactly. I'm going to ask family, and I'm assuming the next answer is going to be popcorn. Yeah. What goes together with a best friend? That's a good question. What goes together with a best friend? Fun. Fun? That's a good one. Fun. Fun and friends. I love that you're just agreeing on it. Yeah. Very wholesome. What goes together with Seth? Billy. Okay. And what goes together with Billy? Billy. Yeah. Billy goes together. Billy makes sense. Well, thank you for humoring me with that. I want to ask, do y'all remember the first time that you saw the original Lion King? Yeah. I saw it with my parents in the movie theater in 1994. Wow. I loved it. I mean, I loved that whole era of Disney movies like everyone else. And I loved Timon and Pumbaa. You know? I mean, they really, they're such fun characters, but never imagined I would be playing one of them, but yeah. I feel like most kids grow up thinking, I'm going to one day play a warthog. No? When I was a young warthog. Very nice. Yes. That's what I did. I'm so sorry. Why? Because you didn't raise me well. How about you, Seth? Yeah. I remember I was, I think, 12 or 13 when the movie came out. I'm so sorry that I'm making you say when, how old you were. It's all right. You can Google it. It's on. It's on IMDB. But yeah, and I loved it. That whole streak of Disney films, you know, like The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, Lion King, like, I was huge fans of them and genuinely, like, they starred people I really liked and was into. You know? I loved Matthew Broderick from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I loved Robin Williams. So like, to me, they were, you know, movies that really starred people that, like, I was big fans of as someone who liked comedy. So I remember loving, I remember loving Timon and Pumbaa and saying, one day I'm going to be in two spinoff remakes. Based on those characters. CGI, 2024 technology. Yeah, exactly. Very intuitive. I was like, what is the prequel to this? That's awesome. And this movie, what I thought was really interesting is there's a lot about female role models and the way that Mufasa really learns from the females in his pride. So do either one of you or both of you have any female role models in your life that inspire you? Oh, many. I'm a gay man. My icons are all women. And Seth Rogen. I'm a Jewish man, so all my icons are my mother. Exactly. Because she tells you to do that. Yes, exactly. Yeah, many. Many. My wife. My wife is a role model to me, Lauren. She teaches me a lot and is very corrective in her. Anyone specific? So many people. My mother was, my aunt. They were very encouraging of my love for entertainment and very supportive. I have many girlfriends that I love. It's too many people. Famous women I grew up loving. Streisand, Madonna, Cher. All the icons. All the gay icons. And Seth Rogen. Also a gay icon. Gay icon. Awesome. I have to ask, we talked a lot about popcorn already. We really did. We're not done. We got pretty deep into popcorn. Oh boy. Buckle in for the next two minutes. What would each of your characters, what do you think they would put in their popcorn? Grubs. Bugs. For sure bugs. Yeah. This looks like a good spot to rustle up some grub. Ew, what's that? A grub. What's it look like? Ew, gross. Tastes like chicken. Worms. Yeah, probably worms and grubs. I think the worm is a bug. Worm's a bug. Yeah. Is it? I don't know. Is a worm a bug? Is a worm a bug, Regal? Put you on the spot. And I'm going to answer it right now, and this is where we will insert whether a bug is a worm. Perfect. We'll pick that up later. Yeah, it was so smart that I knew how to answer that. Exactly. We can all go watch A Bug's Life again. Last thing I will ask is, why should people see this on the big screen? What about Mufasa is important for people to get out and actually go into the world and see the movie? It's visually spectacular. It's basically an action-adventure movie, the way they've put this together. There are amazing chase sequences. Lions fighting in a waterfall underwater on a snow-capped mountain. I don't know how they do it, but it's truly incredible. So to see that on a big screen I think is going to be awesome. New songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda. We're doing our stupid shtick again, if you like that. Which you have to see in the theater. The only way to absorb us on a screen. You need it. Outsiders! This is not a drill! There will be one Lion King. First things first. Lin, you are potentially one of the greatest songwriters of our generation. I would be remiss if I didn't take advantage of this opportunity. I wrote a song. It's about popcorn. I was just wondering if you could let me know, if you could give your opinions. Maybe help me workshop. I'm just going to give you... Okay, cool. Okay. Popcorn, popcorn, what a treat. Popcorn, popcorn, salty not sweet. Popcorn, popcorn, it's the greatest popcorn. That's like a calm response. Popcorn. Great. What do you think? I love it. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of... You're too young for this. But the let's all go to the lobby. I'm too young. I'm from Regal. Of course I... Yeah, I mean that feels like a next generation living in that world. Lovely, bravo. I feel like I should have gone with a ballad on it, honestly. Ballads are tough before a movie though. Okay, fair enough. Everyone's going to go to the bathroom. Okay. You got to keep it upbeat. I think that was... Your first instinct was your best instinct. Thank you. Any notes? Like anything you would change? It's like you're the professional. No, it rhymed, it's catchy, it's peppy. You like it. Yeah, I like it. Oh my God. Okay. Well, thank you. Okay, great. Check that off of my bucket list. What's the difference between writing music for an animated film and for live action? Is there any difference in the process? Do you kind of start in the same place? Not really. And this is such a hybrid. I mean, this essentially is an animated movie. The process is not the same as making Encanto because Barry's working with live actors and working stuff out physically. But yeah, no. I mean, it's the same writing for theater, writing for film. You're trying to be honest to the moment of that character in that situation and you just kind of act it out until it feels true. When it feels true, you write it down. Wow. Amazing. Do you remember the first time you saw the original Lion King? I do. It was a half day of school and I went with my friends Claire Newman and Dane Martinez. Wow. No, I hated it. That's why I'm here. That makes sense. You were like, I'm going to correct the story here. Yeah, no. Obviously, I loved it. I was traumatized as anyone else after that Willoughby stampede. But I also think one of the gifts and magic tricks of that movie is it shows us grief in its purest form and then like ten minutes later we're laughing at Hakuna Matata and like fart lyrics. It just contains... Like life. Yeah, like life. It just contains like kind of the whole world inside it and it's a really special movie. I mean, we're here on the 30th anniversary of it. Yeah. Okay, so you wrote a song, We Go Together. I would love to play a game. Okay. What goes together with blanks. I'm ready. So, what goes together with popcorn? Besides my song. Salt. What goes together with a best friend? Coffee. Oh, sorry. Coffee. Coffee and a best friend. Coffee and a best friend is like a good afternoon. I love that. That's so wonderful. What goes together with family? Space. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. What goes together with a good time? I'm going to say coffee again. Coffee. Maybe I just need coffee. Someone get this man coffee. Exactly. Believe in Will Ferrandez, you're getting coffee. Why do you think people should see this on the big screen? Oh, I think Barry's made it a singularly big screen experience. I think, first of all, Barry Jenkins is one of the great makers of cinematic images we have and one of our great storytellers, and so I'm really excited to see it on the big screen. I haven't yet. I've only been working on it on my computer, and so I'm like chomping at the bit to get to see it. It's awesome. The thing that I was most floored by is just the fur, the animation of the fur. It's incredible, and you can see it on the screen, and it's really great. Yeah, and more than that, his storytelling ability, just like how expressive he's been able to make these animals. It's such a leap, even from the 2019 film, so I'm really thrilled about that. So there's a lot in this film about role models, and specifically female role models. Yeah. Do you have any female role models that you can immediately think of? I have nothing but female role models in my life, starting with my wife, who is the smartest person I know. My secret weapon in my life is that any time I write something, I'm getting the best questions before I even leave the house. Like, Barry doesn't hear any music until I play it for Vanessa. No one hears any music until I play it for Vanessa, and she's just like a giant brain lawyer, and she'll be like, well, why would they say that? And she doesn't let... I like that she's like roasting you. No, it's not a roast, it's just she just asks the real questions, and I think something that can happen to artists later in their careers after they've had success is they surround themselves with people who go, you're a genius, and I don't have that. I have people who go, I really like the song, this didn't make sense to me, or I didn't understand what you were saying with this, and my kids do that. My wife does that, but she is just, she's really smart and yet really kind, and so she's a big role model to me. Smart and kind, I love that. Well, thank you so much, truly. You can't have my song, it's mine, so don't try to take it. TM, TM, TM, TM, TM. Thank you so much. Cheers.