Jacob Tremblay Defends Flounder’s New Look in ‘The Little Mermaid’: “I Couldn’t Really Imagine It a Different Way”

The internet had quite a splashy reaction when images were first revealed of the updated Flounder in Disney’s new live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid, and Jacob Tremblay, who voices the friendly fish, is weighing in.

“I actually saw it for the first time in the audition — [director] Rob [Marshall] had showed me. I thought it was really cool because I like how they’re doing it to make them look like real animals,” Tremblay told The Hollywood Reporter at the film’s world premiere on Monday. “In rehearsals too I had seen the other characters’ designs and thought it was really cool, and then I finally got to see the movie last night and I thought they worked really well. I couldn’t really imagine it a different way, if that makes sense. I think it worked perfectly; they were really smart about it.

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“I think people should see the movie, and then they can judge,” he added, after many online comments about how the cute cartoon sidekick from the 1989 animated film had been given a very different look in the new adaptation.

Tremblay, now 16, explained how he had never sung professionally before going to the Little Mermaid audition, “so I was very, very nervous about that. But luckily, younger 12-year-old Jacob’s voice was a lot smoother than this, a lot less voice cracks. I managed to pull it off, and it was really exciting and I was very happy.”

The actor joked that in the four years that the movie has taken to come out, “my voice has changed so much that when I was rewatching it I couldn’t really tell it was me. I was like, ‘Is that me? Doesn’t sound like me.'”

And in playing Ariel’s best friend, Tremblay got to spend some time getting close to star Halle Bailey, noting he went to London to rehearse with her “and it was really cool because I actually got to see her sing in person. It was really emotional, it gave me goosebumps. I saw the film last night and she’s just perfect, flawless.”

The Little Mermaid hits theaters on May 26.

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