Little Mermaid director Rob Marshall denies any “agenda,” was surprised by reaction to the trailer

The first teaser for director Rob Marshall’s live-action remake of Disney’s The Little Mermaid was built around hyping up the reveal of Ariel—the little mermaid herself—before giving us a brief snippet of star Halle Bailey singing “Part Of Your World.” It was a perfectly serviceable teaser, exactly the sort of thing we’ve come to expect for these Disney remakes, but it received a bit of a backlash on release simply because… well, some people are racist. Why dance around it?

But there were also plenty of people who were excited to see a Black Disney princess, especially since it’s a famous princess with a notable legacy, and Marshall recently told Entertainment Weekly that he was surprised by how much it meant to people to see Bailey’s Ariel for the first time. “I wasn’t anticipating that because, in a way, I felt like we’ve moved so far past that kind of thing,” he explained, “But then you realize, in a way we haven’t.” He said it was “very moving” to see the impact that “this kind of casting” can have on the world.

Marshall also noted that they “saw everybody and every ethnicity” for the role of Ariel and that they had “no agenda” when trying to find someone who could star in The Little Mermaid. “We just were looking for the best actor for the role, period. The end.” He said they wanted someone “incredibly strong, passionate, beautiful, smart, clever” with “a great deal of fire and joy.” Marshall said that some people they saw were too “jaded” or “too wise” for Ariel, but Bailey “still had that freshness in herself” and as soon as they decided to cast her thaty started thinking about “how we can make this her Ariel.”