Disney’s Live-Action Lion King Finds Its Sarabi in Alfre Woodard | Playbill

Film & TV News Disney’s Live-Action Lion King Finds Its Sarabi in Alfre Woodard The actor who broke out in For Colored Girls... will lend her voice to the feature film alongside Donald Glover and James Earl Jones.
Alfre Woodard Shutterstock / Disney

Disney's live-action remake of The Lion King has found its mother. Oscar nominee Alfre Woodard will provide the voice of Sarabi—Simba's mom—in the upcoming film, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Woodard made her Broadway debut in 1975 in Me and Bessie, but her performance in the Los Angeles production of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf in 1977 marked her breakout role. She transitioned to film and television work and did not return to Broadway until 2004 in Drowning Crow, inspired by Chekhov’s The Seagull. In 1984, she earned an Oscar nod for Cross Creek.

Read: OSCAR NOMINEE CHIWITEL EJIOFOR IN TALKS TO VOICE SCAR IN THE LION KING

Woodard joins previously announced Donald Glover as Simba, James Earl Jones as Mufasa, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar, John Oliver as Zazu, Seth Rogen as Pumbaa, and Billy Eichner as Timon.
 
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