After performing with her mom onstage during the Renaissance tour, Blue Ivy Carter will join Beyoncé on the big screen.
The mother-daughter duo both voice characters in the upcoming prequel to 2019 live-action hit “The Lion King.” “Mufasa: The Lion King,” directed by Barry Jenkins and hitting theaters in December, tells the story of Mufasa’s life and his childhood with brother Scar.
Carter will voice Simba and Nala’s daughter, Kiara, while Beyoncé will reprise her role as Nala and Donald Glover will return as Simba. Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen also are back as Timon and Pumbaa.
While the film marks Carter’s first acting gig in a movie, the 12-year-old already has an impressive résumé. In addition to dancing backup on her mother‘s record-smashing Renaissance world tour, she is a Grammy winner thanks to her feature in Beyoncé’s “Brown Skin Girl” music video, which took home the music video trophy at the 2021 Grammys. Although she won that award at age 9, Carter has been setting records and making headlines since birth. Two days after she was born in 2012, her father, Jay-Z, released the song “Glory,” which featured her cries and coos. Since she was individually credited on the track, she became (and remains) the youngest person to appear on a Billboard chart.
Beyoncé also recently enlisted the help of her younger daughter, Rumi, as she recorded her new album, “Cowboy Carter.” The track “Protector,” a touching tribute to her children and motherhood, starts with Beyoncé’s 6-year-old asking her to sing a lullaby.
The “Mufasa” teaser trailer, which Disney debuted on Monday morning, does not reveal whether audiences can expect to hear Carter sing, but given Beyoncé’s musical contributions to the 2019 film, it is likely that her daughter will follow suit.
While the original 1994 animated film and the 2019 live-action remake featured familiar tunes composed by Elton John and lyricist Tim Rice, along with one original song by Beyoncé, the prequel will include new music by “Hamilton” mastermind Lin-Manuel Miranda. Miranda has become a frequent Disney collaborator, working on the music for “Moana,” “Encanto” and the 2023 live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid.”
Jenkins, the filmmaker behind the Oscar-winning “Moonlight” and “If Beale Street Could Talk,” said Carter and Beyoncé did not have to pretend too much during the voice acting process and that it was “really special” to watch them work together.
“Beyoncé is this larger-than-life figure, but when she’s working with her daughter, when she’s in the room with her daughter, she’s a mom first,” he said Monday on “Good Morning America” after dropping the trailer. “So much of that energy bled into the film.”
