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Lin-Manuel Miranda has heard the criticism before. As some cynics on the internet have repeated, the songwriter and actor who gave the world In the Heights and Hamilton supposedly cannot write a villain song. It’s an odd take since he previously submitted the delightfully decadent “Shiny” in Moana—and we’d argue Aaron Burr’s jazzy barnburner, “The Room Where It Happens,” isn’t exactly an epiphany for good deeds—yet the critique persists. And like a certain North Carolina basketball player, Miranda chose to take that personally.
And in Mufasa: The Lion King, the Tony winner might just have his slam dunk of a baddie anthem. Written for a sadistic snow white lion laying in wait in the Pride Lands, Kiros (Mads Mikkelsen), “Bye Bye” has the playfulness and rapid wordplay Miranda is known for, as well as a real wicked sense of humor that seems tailor-made for countless TikToks to come. Also as revealed to Den of Geek during an interview at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, the banger was one Miranda had to lobby for and push to get in the movie.
“The villain song was my pitch,” Miranda says when we ask if there were any musical scenes not earmarked in the script for a showtune. “They already had such a great villain in Kiros, who’s voiced by Mads Mikkelsen, one of our great Bond villains, one of our great movie villains. He’s like an Indiana Jones Nazi! [Laughs] He’s a great villain! So I just wanted a chance to write to his voice and take advantage of the fact they already had this great villain. Let’s lean into it.”
It is indeed the first time we can think of where we hear Mikkelsen, the charismatic but often severe Danish actor who has played everyone from Hannibal Lecter to Casino Royale’s Le Chiffre, break into a rap. But the tune has a real purpose in Miranda’s mind other than to get that voice purring rhymes.
Says Miranda, “I think my favorite villains have their own reasons, and they’re just antithetical to our protagonists’ reasons. So to get to write a line like, ‘The Circle of Life is a lie,’ it is [attacking] the central tenet of what Dad James Earl Jones tells us, may he rest in peace. It’s pretty much the best way to do a heel turn for a Disney villain.” Miranda even notes the similarities to his previous Disney villain song, which also had a dark sardonic streak.
“It was similar to when I was writing ‘Shiny’ for Moana,” Miranda explains. “You’ve got Gramma Tala saying, ‘You have to listen to the voice inside,’ and then you have Tamatoa being like, ‘It doesn’t matter! The outside is the only thing that matters!’ So it’s really about having just a really strong opposing force.”
The role of villainy, and what makes one villainous, matters greatly in Mufasa: The Lion King, a movie which introduces the idea that Scar was not always a bad guy himself. In fact, he’s not even called Scar for most of the picture. He is instead known as Taka, a kind, young lion who rescues an orphaned cub named Mufasa… before things pull them apart. For the actor playing the cat who would become Scar, Luce’s Kelvin Harrison Jr., it was also a creative opportunity.
“I think no one’s a villain without having a heart,” Harrison tells us in a separate interview. “A villain has been hurt at some point, and upset and hurt for so long, it made them angry. So my job was to figure out where all the arrows were pointing to. There’s an arrow pointing at his Dad, there’s an arrow pointing to Mufasa, there’s an arrow pointing at a lack of community and support, there’s an arrow pointing to just the way the politics work in the Pride Lands. There’s an arrow pointed at Sarabi. So all these people were complicit in his confusion, but at the same time, he has to start to understand what accountability means.”
For Harrison it’s a chance to dabble in legacy, complete with eventually some Jeremy Irons-like flourishes. But legacy looms large over the whole film. Rebel Ridge’s Aaron Pierre performed the role of a young Mufasa before James Earl Jones’ passing earlier this year, however Jones’ shadow has tracked Pierre’s mind since well before Mufasa came along.
“I study James Earl Jones, period,” Pierre tells us. “Whether it be his extensive filmography or his extensive work in the theater, or his voice work. He is a guiding light for me and my artistry, point blank. So of course that resulted, when being gifted with this opportunity, to being guided by the original portrayal of Mufasa, this iconic, cherished, celebrated character he originated. That was my guiding light that kept me on the path whenever I was unsure, whenever I didn’t have the answers. And actually the nerves that I had were perfect, because I was portraying an adolescent version of this great king, and certainly in my experience of being an adolescent, I was unsure. I didn’t have it all figured out, and I was searching for answers to questions. So hopefully I served him, and hopefully I served his character.”
Of course the legacy of The Lion King remains immense, especially to any Millennial ‘90s kid (hi, there) who will tell the next generation that the ’94 classic is still the best Disney movie. Yet there also needs to be some realistic acceptance that if you’re going to tackle this world in 2024, things will be different. For his part, Miranda did not try to emulate what Elton John and Tim Rice did while writing the songs of the original classic, often with the help of South African composer and vocalist Lebo M. (whose voice you hear throughout all film versions of The Lion King).
“I think the fun thing about songwriting is I feel like it’s a pretty envy free zone,” Miranda notes, “because the way we write, it just comes out of us different. If you gave me and Elton and Tim the same assignment, we’d write totally different things. We can’t help it, it’s just how it comes out of us. We’re more filters than anything else. What I did know was… that I needed Lebo M. to help with the arrangements and his incredible quality there, because to me that is the secret sauce of Lion King. It’s his voice, his musical harmonies. So when I was writing, I just made a lot of space for that. I knew Lebo would come in, and it would be an iterative process where he would add a lot of his own things to it.”
Still, Miranda admits it helps that he is not the first person to musically revisit the 1994 film in 30 years.
“I think I probably would have been more intimidated if only the 1994 film existed and this was the next thing, but I feel like a lot of amazing composers have gotten to play in this space. Not only Elton John and Tim Rice and Hans Zimmer, but also Lebo M. and Mark Mancina did such amazing work in adapting the Broadway musical, which expanded the sonic palette, and then Beyoncé came out with that album that kind of expanded the notion of what a Lion King song could sound like with ‘The Gift.’”
So making something like Mufasa, at least in Miranda’s mind, is not about baton-passing; it’s “a pool that a lot of really cool people are swimming in. I want to jump into the pool.”
Mufasa: The Lion King invites your family to join in when the movie opens only in theaters on Friday, Dec. 20.
The post Lin-Manuel Miranda Fought to Write a Villain Song for Mads Mikkelsen in Mufasa appeared first on Den of Geek.
