Tiffany Boone Didn’t Know She Was Auditioning for Sarabi in Mufasa

When Tiffany Boone stepped in for her Mufasa audition, she had no idea she would get to play the iconic lion queen Sarabi.

“I created the character that was in my head, [but] I didn’t know I was auditioning for Sarabi,” the actress, 37, exclusively told Us Weekly on Thursday, December 19, while discussing Mufasa: The Lion King. “It had a different name on the page. So I was like, ‘This must be some new character.’”

As Boone read through the script, she thought the character seemed “cool” and wanted to use her voice to reflect that aspect of her personality. Boone was thrown for a loop once it was revealed that she was going to voice the beloved cartoon character.

“So when they told me who I was actually playing, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s quite a bit of pressure, actually,’” she confessed.

Boone shared that she asked director Barry Jenkins whether he wanted her to make her vocals sound more like Madge Sinclair, who originally voiced the character in the original Lion King from 1994, or like Alfre Woodard, who played Sarabi in the 2019 live-action adaptation. Jenkins, 45, had faith in Boone’s talent and encouraged her to be herself as they developed Sarabi’s backstory.

“I had so much freedom to create the younger version of her and give the other layers to the character [and] the challenges that she went through to become the great queen that she becomes,” she told Us.

As a fan of The Lion King, Boone always saw Sarabi as the “perfect” wife, mother and queen, so she wanted fans to get a taste of Sarabi’s personality before she became Mufasa’s loyal partner.

“She wasn’t always perfect. She’s sassy … she’s sarcastic and she makes fun of the boys,” Boone said, referring to Mufasa and his adopted brother, Taka, who will become Scar later on. “I think she has a sense of humor about her. She’s really vulnerable, and all those things are really fun to add to the complexity of the Sarabi that we see later on.”

Boone teased that fans might be “surprised” to see how Sarabi’s relationship with Mufasa (voiced by Aaron Pierre) unfolds, hinting it’s “not such a straight line.” As for rumors of a love triangle between Sarabi, Mufasa and Scar, Boone hinted that fans will “get an answer” when they see the movie.

“You’re gonna get to understand the three of them a lot better, for sure,” she teased.

Boone admitted that she’s “still pinching” herself that she is now a member of the Lion King family.

“I can’t believe that I’m a part of it,” she shared, noting that her younger self couldn’t have dreamed of such an opportunity. “Telling that little version of me that used to sit and watch the VHS in my mother’s bed over and over again, like, ‘You’re gonna be a part of that family, that story.’ I feel like her little head would explode. My imagination couldn’t even dream of this.”

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However, Boone admitted that there was “definitely pressure” to make sure she and the whole Mufasa team delivered — especially for fans of the animated classic.

“I know that there’s a bunch of people who are like, ‘Are they gonna do this justice?’” she reflected. “But there’s also so much joy, and that’s what I think we were trying to remember when we were recording. And I think Barry Jenkins really led us in the direction of finding the joy in these moments and having a lot of fun and to let the pressure kind of roll off our backs and just do our jobs as actors.”

Mufasa: The Lion King is in theaters now.

With reporting by Kat Pettibone