'Aladdin' Voice Actor Linda Larkin On Why Jasmine Is 'A Princess For 2019' (2024)

In Part 1 of my oral history of 1992's animatedAladdin, actor/writer Scott Weinger looked back on his voice role as the film's titular street-urchin-turned-prince. In Part 2 of this series, Linda Larkin, the original voice of Princess Jasmine, discusses the royal opportunity that changed her life forever.

Josh Weiss: How did you become attached to the project in the first place?

Linda Larkin: Well, I auditioned for it in California at the Disney Studios. I had one of many auditions that week. It was so funny, I just was going through a lot of old stuff and I found a date book from 1990 and it had an audition for Aladdin at Disney with the address and then I wrote, ‘Role: Jasmine.’ … It was so funny to see how my life was gonna change from that moment on. So, I auditioned for it and I didn’t hear anything from them for maybe a month and then I got a call and they said, ‘They wanna see you again.’ That kept going on for probably four months until I got the job.

Josh Weiss: How did you craft the voice? Hearing you talk now, it seems like it was just your normal cadence.

Linda Larkin: Right, I would say that, too. It was always my authentic voice, but working with the directors [John Musker and Ron Clements], working with the material, I think that something was a little bit altered. We definitely tried to pitch the character a little longer than my natural speaking voice to make her a little more serious and deeper and stronger. We flipped the pitch of my voice down a bit. The emotional arc of the character, I think, really came through my voice. That was something that came from the writing.

Josh Weiss: What specific tips did you get from the directors?

Linda Larkin: That was one of the big things, finding where the voice of the character would be rooted. Scene-by-scene, we really went through it and explored all possibilities. We recorded for almost two years before the movie came out, so we got to spend hours and hours together, saying, ‘What if we tried it this way? And what about that way?’ It was limitless, and what they chose in the end was entirely up to them. I gave them everything and they chose from that what they wanted to be in the final movie.

Josh Weiss: What was the pitch they gave you for the character?

Linda Larkin: I don’t I really remember the description of her. I just remember the first scene that I auditioned with [which] was the market place scene. There was something in that scene, Jasmine stepping out into the world for the first time and she was discovering something about the world and discovering something about herself at the same time. When she meets Aladdin, she discovers some courage in herself that she didn’t know she previously had. She jumps over a building and she’s with a strange boy for the first time in her life and she’s not being a princess—she’s just being Jasmine. I really felt like that scene gave me a lot of information about who Jasmine was, about her character and about what her challenges were gonna be and what she was gonna find out about herself. I had a strong sense of her from that first scene and that first audition.

Josh Weiss: Did you ever record your lines alongside Scott Weinger, Robin Williams, Jonathan Freeman, etc?

Linda Larkin: They were all memorable, every single one of them. I think a day that stood out for me and Scott was the day that we got to record with Robin Williams. I wasn’t even sure they were gonna bring me in for that recording day, because I had such little dialogue with Genie. I thought, ‘Oh, they’ll probably pick it up for one of my solo sessions, because they don’t need to spend any of this valuable with Robin recording me.’ But they said, ‘No no no. Come in, he’s doing a lot of improvising and we really wanna get the feel live of how you guys respond to it.’ So, Aladdin would respond directly to the Genie and I would respond to Aladdin.

Whatever Genie said, Aladdin said, and then I said. It was a really wonderful idea [to have] us all in the recording studio together because the spontaneity of it was so true. The joy that Scott and I had to being in the room with Robin Williams comes through in the film because as characters, Genie and Aladdin and Jasmine have such a beautiful chemistry together and we really experienced that in real life the day we recorded.

Josh Weiss: This has become such a huge, huge movie. Did you have any idea just how big it was going to become at the time?

Linda Larkin: We had no idea. If anyone tells you they knew, they didn’t know … We didn’t even know in the beginning that we were necessarily making a feature film. When I first got the job, I thought, ‘A Disney animated something.’ I didn’t know if it was a kid’s cartoon or a direct-to-VHS movie—I had no idea. As we were going along, I realized this was something big and when Beauty and the Beast came out while we were still making Aladdin, I realized this was probably something huge. Even still, we didn’t know ‘Would our movie be received as well as Beauty and the Beast? Would it be part of this wave of Disney Renaissance animation?’ We didn’t know, we just had no idea and when it came out and it broke all kinds of box office records and had an amazing opening weekend and was so well-received, we were like, ‘Ok, we know now we’re a part of something historic.’

Josh Weiss: Any other fun behind-the-scenes anecdotes from recording your lines?

Linda Larkin: It truly did not get better than the day with Robin. That was so fun as you can imagine. He was free to do whatever he wanted. it was animation, anything he did, they could draw to it, they could keep up with him. It was that beautiful creativity completely unhinged. It was just really great to see it and to experience it in person and to play off of it. It was incredible for us. Scott and I were blown away and at the same time we were working, we were right there with him and that was an unforgettable experience.

Josh Weiss: Do you have any specific memories from when the movie first came out?

Linda Larkin: I remember it was a whirlwind. I remember we were traveling to different places and doing press junkets and ridings camels and [going to] Disney World and [going to] Disneyland in parades and doing all kinds of stuff. I remember the premiere at El Capitan, my parents were there with me. Some of my fondest memories, though, are going to see the movie with my friends. All of my friends wanted to see it with me, so I ended up seeing it like 10 times because not everybody could go at the same time. It was just great to be sitting in an audience with people who had nothing to do with the film and watching them enjoy this thing that I was a part of. That was so great, I love those memories.

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - APRIL 10: Actress Linda Larkin and actor Scott Weinger autograph copies of the... [+] classic children's book "Aladdin" on April 10, 1993 at Books of Wonder in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./WireImage)

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Josh Weiss: What was your experience with/thoughts on the film's music?

Linda Larkin: When I was cast in the movie, Jasmine didn’t have a song, which was, I guess, really fortuitous for me because if Jasmine had been a character who sang, I would’ve never auditioned for it. I wasn’t a singer, I wasn’t in musical theater—it would’ve just not been something that I would’ve been submitted for. The fact that she didn’t have a song at that time, really opened up the opportunity for me to voice this character. And then when they added a song and they told me [about it], my heart fell. I thought, ‘Well, that’s the end of me doing Jasmine. Now they’re gonna know I don’t sing and there’s never a been an actress who didn’t sing in a musical version of a Disney animated film, so it’s over.’ They said, ‘You know what? We’re gonna find a singer, don’t worry about it. We’re committed to your speaking voice.’

They played the song for me [and] I was just weeping; I loved ‘Whole New World’ so much from the moment I heard it. Lea Salonga [was cast], they played the song for me after she recorded it with Brad Kane, and I was weeping again. I can almost never hear their version of the song without having an emotional reaction. It just gets me every time and the whole time I was just a little bit nervous that they were gonna discover that the girl who sang could also speak and would say they were gonna go back and replace me. But when the movie came out and I saw it in the theaters and I saw the seamless connection my speaking voice and Lea’s singing voice, I was just blown away by what they were able to do and the magic that they created out of these individual components.

And while I had nothing to do with the music, I really did form a close bond with Alan Menken during the lead-up to the film and all the press that we did and the years that followed all the times we went back and revisited the film. I have such a close bond to him, but I’ve never actually worked with him because he’s all music and I’m all speaking voice.

Josh Weiss: Have you seen the Aladdin musical on Broadway?

Linda Larkin: Oh yes, of course I have. The original Jafar from our movie, Jonathan Freeman, is Jafar in the Broadway production, so I’ve seen it more than once. I love the stage production. I think they’ve really created their own magical world there and have really done a beautiful job telling the story with exuberance and it’s just wonderful. I love it.

Josh Weiss: Any standout fan interactions over the years?

Linda Larkin: I’ve had a lot of fan interactions in the last few years because I’ve started traveling to conventions and meeting people in person in a way that I had not done up until a few years ago. I always had worked in a studio often by myself because I’m based in New York. When I did the original movie, I lived in California and recorded at Disney Studios. Since the original, I’ve been recording Jasmine for 29 years, and do most of my recording in New York, so it’s basically just me in the booth and the engineer on the other side of the glass and the directors or clients or whoever else is working on it, patched in through my headset.

To really go out in the world and meet people that have been impacted by this movie; people, [who grew up with it]. [To see that] I have been one small but significant part of the fabric of their lives, it’s pretty powerful. I feel very grateful that people are sharing their stories with me and sharing what this film meant to them, what Jasmine had meant to them. And that they’re sharing it now with their kids and their kids are experiencing something that means a lot to me and to be able to reach all of these people that I didn’t really know I was reaching is pretty incredible.

People bring me their VHS covers to sign at conventions and they’re so beloved, so well-worn and beautifully preserved at the same time. I love when I see a VHS cover come across my table to be signed.

Josh Weiss: What do you think of the remake?

Linda Larkin: I love these live-action versions. I’ve seen all of them and I really love this retelling and remaining of the original stories. I think it’s a great way to reach an even broader audience, to create something new out of the story that already love. I think this is gonna be a huge success. I really have great hope for this live-action version of Aladdin and am really glad that they did it. I think people are gonna love it and they’re gonna really enjoy the expansion of this story and these characters and the re-exploration through the eyes of 2019. I always felt like we were ahead of our time, I felt like Jasmine ahead of her time as a young woman in 1992. She was really a princess for 2019 and to see her in 2019, to see that explored now, is just so exciting for me.

Josh Weiss: Have you seen the new film?

Linda Larkin: I have. I loved it. I don’t wanna spoil anything for anyone. I’m just excited for everyone to see it.

Josh Weiss: What advice would you give the live-action Jasmine played by Naomi Scott?

Linda Larkin: I would just tell her to enjoy the ride.

Josh Weiss: Other than Jasmine, who is your favorite Aladdin character?

Linda Larkin: It would have to be Aladdin. I truly love the human being that [he] is. I love where he comes from and what he becomes and the discovery of his true heart in the movie. I love everything single one of them, each character for me is just essential to the story and we are all nothing without each other. I think you really see that, how we are all important in the development of each other in that movie.

Josh Weiss: If you had three wishes, what would you wish for?

Linda Larkin: I’ve answered this question before and I always feel super corny because my answers are so meta. I truly wish for peace, for joy, and for well-being for myself and everyone around me. I just think that that is the best thing we can hope for in life. There will always be challenges, there will always be ups and downs in life, but if you can find joy and maintain your well-being and ultimate live in peace, it’s perfect.

Guy Ritchie's live-action Aladdin remake opens in theaters tomorrow, May 24. In Part 3 of this series (coming tomorrow), the original movie's art director, Bill Perkins, provides insight on designingthe look of the 1992 project.

'Aladdin' Voice Actor Linda Larkin On Why Jasmine Is 'A Princess For 2019' (2024)
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