'The Lion King' stars tell all 30 years later

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By Ryan Smith

Senior Pop Culture & Entertainment Reporter

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Brace yourself, June 15 marks 30 years (yes, 30) since The Lion King first hit screens, becoming an instant classic that has continued to stand tall among the best-loved children's movies of all time.

The unforgettable animated tale of Simba was brought to life by an all-star cast, that included Matthew Broderick as the voice of the lion prince, James Earl Jones in the role of Mufasa, Jeremy Irons as Scar, Whoopi Goldberg as Shenzi, and Rowan Atkinson as Zazu. Also voicing another integral character was Nathan Lane, one half of the adorable duo Timon and Pumbaa.

Such was the Disney film's acclaim that it was nominated for four Academy Awards and won two. Sir Elton John and Tim Rice took home the Oscar for best original song with "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," while Hans Zimmer won for best original score.

"We Didn't Know What the Story Was"

Ernie Sabella had a memorable role as the flatulent warthog Pumbaa, opposite Lane's happy-go-lucky and fast-talking meerkat Timon.

At the time that they auditioned, the actors were working together on the Broadway production of Guys and Dolls. Initially called in to record as hyenas for what was then known as King of the Jungle, the pair's undeniable chemistry proved so captivating that they were recast as the iconic duo.

However, Sabella admitted to Newsweek that he still had little idea about the film's storyline, explaining: "Since we only get pages that we're on, not the whole script, we didn't know what the story was. With Disney and Jeffrey Katzenberg, we just knew that great people were involved."

Despite having seen just limited parts of the script, Sabella was aware that they had landed roles in something exceptional. But he feared being bumped from the project in order for "big stars" to step into their roles. "I said, 'Let's just hope that we're still in the movie by the time they open because these are special parts'," he recalled of his conversation with Lane at the time.

Ernie Sabella

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Voice actors' roles are more often than not recorded solo in a booth. But with Timon and Pumbaa being packaged as a duo, Sabella and Lane worked together throughout, giving them more opportunity to hone their working synergy.

"It was perfectly natural for us, knowing our comic rhythms," Sabella said of their days at work on the movie, which usually followed five-show weekend performances on Broadway.

In spite of their grueling schedule, they arrived for work full of proverbial beans, leading to Sabella unwittingly creating a defining characteristic for Pumbaa that was not originally in the script.

"So we're in the recording studio and we're reading and having a cup of coffee, trying to get the engine running," he recounted. "I started making these fart sounds in my hand to just crack [Lane] up. He's laughing, but he's saying. 'Don't do that!' The guys in the booth gave me a thumbs up, like keep it up. Then now we're laughing our a**es off and we're having a great time. But who knew that that was going to be part of the character?"

Sabella has also embraced the suggestion that his character's gaseous antics have made history. He recalled how at a press conference for the movie, he was "sitting at a table with my personal little mic on the table and Nathan's right next to me with his personal little mic, and somebody says, 'Is it true that you're the first Disney character to have flatulence?'

"I've never been first at anything. I was never picked on a team, I wasn't valedictorian. So I said, 'Oh, I'm first!' I owned it very proudly. Yes, I [play] the first Disney character to have flatulence! Nathan leaned over and he said, Well, actually, it was Snow White, but we don't talk about it!'"

Working on The Lion King, which Sabella said was "transformational" for his career, saw him finding a host of new fans including legendary comedian Robin Williams, who he met when Lane invited him to the set of 1996 comedy The Birdcage. Williams, Sabella said, "went nuts" when he learned of his Lion King role. After repeatedly chanting Pumbaa's name, Williams told him: "My family loves it."

Most of all, Sabella's Lion King casting saw his fledgling working relationship with Lane blossom into an enduring friendship. "To this day, he texts me and I text him on and off," Sabella said. "It's just it's the greatest career friendship I have ever dreamt of. And he trusts me. I just love that he trusts me."

"It Just Felt Special"

When Jim Cummings learned the role of Ed the Hyena was available, he instantly knew that he wanted to be a part of it. "The storyline was wonderful," he told Newsweek. "It harkens back to classic literature, really."

"At the time, it just felt special," Cummings continued. "You could tell, because it was just a coming-of-age story. It was a family movie. There was a Shakespearean overtone. Here we are 30 years later, and it's still very, very valid."

While his co-stars busied themselves with learning and reciting lines, Cummings's sole task in his role as Ed was to simply laugh—although there was a method to it.

"I gave a laugh for every occasion in the movie, every emotion, every situation, every plot point, every scene that I was in," he said, "and they just plugged them in accordingly. Of course, some of them were just maniacal laughter like, you know, raving lunatic. Crazy laughter. It was fun."

"All I did was laugh 90 percent of the time," he added. "It was a very interesting process. I can remember [co-director] Rob Minkoff, we're all kind of putting our heads together trying to come up with this. And so we started writing down a laugh of embarrassment, a laugh of victory, a laugh of fright, a laugh of hunger—all these different emotions. And so I just went down the line."

Jim Cummings

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Cummings said that being required to laugh his way through his work was "cathartic. There was an aspect of therapy to it, I think. It was a cleansing moment."

So straightforward was the brief that Cummins recorded his entire span of Ed's expressions in "probably less than an hour."

However, Cummings stuck around on the project to add his voice elsewhere. After actor Irons developed vocal issues while recording the song "Be Prepared," Cummings stepped in to replace him on the musical number.

"The villain always gets a big showstopper, song-wise," Cummings said. "I was very honored for that. I walk into my house, and I see this big, gigantic, multi-platinum plaque up there. It's very, very impressive—I'm very proud of it."

Alongside fellow voice actor Jess Harnell, Cummings also recorded a demo for Timon and Pumbaa's iconic number "Hakuna Matata" while it was still in development, to aid Lane and Sabella in their efforts to get to grips with the uplifting track.

Cummings revealed that, like Sabella, he also added a reference to Pumbaa's bodily functions in an impromptu moment that remained in the film.

"I was Pumbaa and [Harnell] was Timon," Cummings said. "I ad-libbed the verse that was alluding to the passing of gas, shall we say—and they kept it in the movie! And I said to [producer] Don Hahn, 'You kept the fart verse?' He said, 'It was the funniest thing in the movie!' Of course, I didn't get credit for it—or blame."

Cummings recounts working on The Lion King like it happened yesterday, so much so that news of the rapidly approaching 30-year anniversary took him by surprise.

"I can't believe it, to be honest with you," he said. "You know, part of me feels like it was yesterday. But then, of course, I'll see a picture of myself [from then], and I've got this long, black hair. And I say, 'Oh, OK. Well, it wasn't quite yesterday, was it?'"

In the Loop

Phil Proctor's experience on The Lion King was markedly different from the others, as much of his work on the film was via a loop group; an assortment of voice actors who recorded a range of sounds and expressions for post-production.

"You come in with maybe half a dozen to a dozen other talented improvisational actors," Proctor explained of the process. "You are chosen and somebody could say, 'Phil, get up and do this role. And then you get up and you do it. Or they say, 'OK, Phil, and John and Ted, go and read for it, and we'll choose which one we want.' And so it's an active, real-time process, putting voices on these things."

Proctor, who rose to fame decades ago as a part of legendary comedy troupe Fireside Theatre, added that even while recording a major role, requests are often placed for such voice actors to portray several other characters simultaneously.

As such, he surmised that his efforts are peppered throughout The Lion King. "I did one of the evil hyenas for sure," he said. "But I'd have to watch the film again, to be able to say, 'Oh, yeah, I did that [as well].'"

Phil Proctor

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"Additional voices are very important in movies in general, and especially animated stuff," he added. "It's a great thrill to be cast as one of the members of a loop group, because everybody is so talented."

As well as being able to think on one's feet, Proctor said, "You must be able to do a lot of different dialects and things."

While he has worked on "so many Pixar and Disney movies," Proctor said that bringing his talents to The Lion King was an honor. "Whenever I got a call to do a Pixar movie, or a Disney movie, I was always really deeply thrilled," he enthused. "Because we knew that it would be seen by a lot of people, and that we would have a wonderful time working on the movie.

"When you work on these animated films, sometimes the scenes are unfinished, and they just show you a storyboard or pictures. So we'd be called back again, after maybe three months. And then suddenly we'd see our characters animated. It was so thrilling."

Proctor, who is also credited in the live-action Lion King remake, admitted that his ability to morph into characters as required has left him struggling to recognize his own voice at times. But it's always a "thrill" when he can pick out his work.

"I've been an actor on stage. I've sung on Broadway. I've won a Theatre World Award," Proctor said of his accomplishments. "I did television, movies and all that stuff. But it's the voiceover stuff that gave me the most satisfaction, because I knew it was going to it was going to reach a wide audience of young people, and older people. And that just thrilled me."

In the case of The Lion King, "We all felt like we were part of something very special. And we approached our work quite seriously, to make sure that we were giving the very best of our performances to this wonderful work of art."

'The Lion King' Legacy

While countless movies are box office hits at the time of release, only to become barely-remembered footnotes later on down the line, what is it about The Lion King that has kept it vivid alive among film fans?

"It's because there's no humans in this movie. It's all animals," Sabella told Newsweek. "This is universal. This is going to be enjoyed even with a greater depth 50 years from now, 100 years now.

"And the fact that Pumbaa and Timon are so integral to the transition of Simba becoming from a boy young man to a man, this is an amazing arc for these two characters... This, to me, is far greater than what I thought we were making."

"I don't have children, but I consider the world's children who are enjoying Lion King my kids," he added. "I have memories of my cousins going to see it in their local movie house and calling up and crying. I've heard from people that I haven't heard from in a long, long, long time. And they're just very moved by it."

As for now, he'll be marking the movie's anniversary when it rolls around, Sabella shared: "I'm going to call Nathan [Lane]. And we'll have a toast. And then we'll have a toast here [at home]. And I think we'll watch the movie."

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