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10 Actors Who REFUSED Disney Princess Roles

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The role of Cinderella almost went to Emma Watson before she ended up playing Belle instead.

Every animated Disney Princess has a voice actor who said yes, but the far more interesting stories belong to the actresses who said no — or almost got the part before it slipped away. TheThings Celebrity’s video “10 Actors Who Were Almost Disney Princesses” runs down the real casting near-misses behind Cinderella, Brave, The Little Mermaid, Maleficent, and The Princess and the Frog. Some walked away over scheduling and accents, one lost a role for skipping the audition entirely, and one seven-year-old simply preferred to be a monster instead of a princess.

• Emma Watson was the front-runner for the title role in Disney’s 2015 live-action Cinderella, alongside Saoirse Ronan and Alicia Vikander, before walking away over creative shifts under director Kenneth Branagh — clearing the way for Lily James, and later leading Watson to sign on as Belle instead.
• Reese Witherspoon was originally cast as Merida in Pixar’s Brave (2012) but revealed in January 2017 that she couldn’t master the Scottish dialect, forcing her exit; Kelly Macdonald took over the role.
• Casting director Jen Rudin confirmed Beyoncé lost the role of Tiana in The Princess and the Frog (2009) after expecting an offer without auditioning, and her Dreamgirls co-star Anika Noni Rose won the part instead.

Emma Watson’s Cinderella Exit

Long before she stepped into Belle’s yellow gown, Emma Watson was Disney’s top choice to play Cinderella in the 2015 live-action remake. She was up against Saoirse Ronan and Alicia Vikander for the part, but as Kenneth Branagh’s creative vision for the film took shape, Watson decided it wasn’t the right fit and stepped back. That decision opened the door for Lily James, who ultimately wore the glass slippers on screen.

The twist is that Watson didn’t stay away from Disney’s princess universe for long. She circled back and took on Belle in Beauty and the Beast, turning the role she’d once been cautious about into one of the studio’s biggest live-action hits.

Reese Witherspoon and the Scottish Dialect That Sank Her Merida Run

Reese Witherspoon was originally attached to voice Merida, the fiery Scottish princess at the center of Pixar’s Brave. For years the official line was scheduling conflicts. Then, in January 2017, Witherspoon set the record straight: she left the project because she couldn’t nail the Scottish dialect the role demanded. Kelly Macdonald, a Glasgow native, ended up voicing Merida in the finished film.

Shiloh Jolie-Pitt turned down the chance to play young Aurora because she’d rather be a horned creature.

The Little Mermaid Domino Effect

Universal and Working Title’s planned live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid produced its own casting shuffle. Chloë Grace Moretz was set for the mermaid role in 2016 before she pulled out of all her upcoming projects to reassess her career and stepped away from the film. Elle Fanning also passed on the same Little Mermaid project — but her reason was that she’d already committed to a different princess, Aurora, opposite Angelina Jolie in Disney’s Maleficent (2014).

A Family Casting Twist Inside Maleficent

Casting the child version of Aurora in Maleficent stayed inside the family — almost. Angelina Jolie offered the part to her own daughter, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, who turned it down flat, telling her mother she’d rather play a horned creature than a princess. The role went instead to Jolie’s younger daughter, Vivienne, who appears on screen as young Aurora across from her real mother’s Maleficent.

Beyoncé’s Tiana Snub

Casting director Jen Rudin has said Beyoncé was in the mix to voice Tiana in The Princess and the Frog (2009) but lost the role after expecting to be handed the part without auditioning for it. The part instead went to Anika Noni Rose — Beyoncé’s own Dreamgirls co-star — who became Disney’s first African-American animated princess.

Every one of these near-misses fed a bigger pattern: Disney rarely locks in its princess casting on the first offer, and the actresses who walk away almost always end up watching someone else become part of animation history. Vivienne Jolie-Pitt got her sister’s declined role on screen, Kelly Macdonald got Reese Witherspoon’s, and Anika Noni Rose got Beyoncé’s — three different princesses, three different actresses who said yes when someone else said no.