Passing the dinglehopper: Inside Jodi Benson's The Little Mermaid cameo

Jodi Benson and Rob Marshall, her director on this year's The Little Mermaid, have a friendship that dates back 40 years.

Before Benson became the voice of Disney's Ariel in the original 1989 animated classic, she was a thespian on the New York City theater scene. "I knew Robbie when he was a dancer on a couple of different shows, and I feel like my husband [actor Ray Benson] and he did a musical together when he was one of the ensemble dance members," Benson tells EW.

When Marshall made his theater directing debut on a traveling production of Chess in 1990, he cast Benson as one of the leads. So when it came time decades later to make a new version of The Little Mermaid, it was already a no-brainer to make room for Benson, with whom he had that shared history.

"We thought, 'It is just so perfect to have her in that, if it felt like it could be organic and not too stunt-y,' " Marshall says.

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty; Giles Keyte/Disney Jodi Benson, who voiced the original Ariel in 1989's animated 'The Little Mermaid,' makes a cameo appearance in Disney's live-action remake

Benson appears briefly in The Little Mermaid (now playing in theaters) within Queen Selena (Noma Dumezweni) and Prince Eric's (Jonah Hauer-King) Caribbean kingdom. Having transformed into a human by this point in the film, Ariel (Halle Bailey) explores the land world for the first time and gets lost amid the vendors of a local marketplace.

She stumbles upon a woman, who offers her a plate of food. But wait! She's going to need something to eat that food. This woman, played by Benson, hands Ariel a fork, which the transformed mermaid then promptly uses to comb her hair. "It's literally like passing the torch," Marshall says. In Scuttle speak, it's like passing the dinglehopper.

The scene already existed in the screenplay, written by David Magee. In the 1989 film, Ariel combs her hair with a fork at the prince's dining table. Marshall didn't feel that was right. A dinner guest, even a mermaid dinner guest, wouldn't start grooming themself at the start of a meal. So they reimagined it in this marketplace setting. By the time they pondered how best to include Benson in the story, this moment rose to the surface.

"It was just a huge thrill for me when Robbie reached out. I'm like, 'Of course I'm gonna come! I don't care what I'm doing. I just can't wait to get around the set and watch all of you work,' " Benson recalls. "It was just pure joy for me."

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Halle Bailey (the current Ariel) and Jodi Benson (the original Ariel) meet at the premiere of 'The Little Mermaid'

Benson's cameo lasts for less than 30 seconds, but she spent more than a month in the U.K. to make it happen. These were pandemic times at the height of COVID-19-prompted lockdowns in May 2020. Lest we all forget, there were weeks-long quarantines and enough safety protocols that made even the Pinewood Studios filming location a new Fort Knox. Add on top of that the time for wardrobe fittings, hair and makeup tests, and, as Benson remembers, dealing with the "severe weather" outside of London.

"There was a heater at my feet at the cauldron-like place where I had my rice and bean mixture that I was cooking up for everybody. [It] exuded a tremendous amount of heat," she says of shooting the sequence. "The cast members, in between takes, would love to come around to warm up."

The entire cast and crew felt the impact of having the original Ariel on set with them, says Marshall. He remembers a moment when Bailey even asked Benson to sing just a few snippets of the character's classic song, "Part of Your World," for her.

"Halle was out of her mind to meet Jodi because she grew up with that Ariel," he continues. "Jodi was equally as lovely and effusive about this meeting. It was quite beautiful. I mean, it's 34 years later. The beauty of Jodi is that she's so open-hearted and excited about this Ariel living alongside her Ariel. They're both there forever now. I think everybody on the set was just thrilled to have Jodi there. It was just really, really moving for all of us."

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