'The Lion King' Cast: Meet the Voices of the Live-Action Characters

With the success of films like Beauty and the Beast and, more recently, Aladdin, Disney has proven itself to be the master of taking its animated classics and turning them into live-action adventures. Promising to be the most amazing of all is The Lion King, which is being brought to life by such actors as Donald Glover (Simba), Beyoncé (Nala), Seth Rogen (Pumbaa), Billy Eichner (Timon) and the legendary James Earl Jones (Mufasa).

Directing is Jon Favreau (most recently seen on screen in Spider-Man: Far From Home), who admits to i09.com he isn’t even sure what kind of movie this actually is: “It’s difficult, because it’s neither [animation nor live-action], really. There are no real animals and there are no real cameras and … there’s not even any performance that’s being captured. But to say it’s animated, I think, is misleading as far as what the expectations might be. And it also changes the way you sit and watch it.”

In the same interview, he notes that this version is going to stay pretty close to the original — though it’s not a shot-for-shot remake. “We’re staying very, very close to what you think it’s gonna be,” he said. “I think part of it is just understanding the way memory works. What expectations are and then being able to do things like, ‘I think we can [improve] the humor here, I don’t think this joke holds up as well, I think we could change the characterization of this character to feel more consistent with the rest of the film, or more current [so it] doesn’t feel like it’s something from a different era.’”

You will be able to judge for yourself when The Lion King opens in theaters on July 19.

Scroll down to meet the actors bringing the different characters to life in this version of the classic Disney story.

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