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10 Celebs You Didn’t Know Played Disney Princesses

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The performers behind Disney’s most beloved princess voices rarely get the same spotlight as their characters.

Every kid who grew up humming “A Whole New World” or “Reflection” probably pictures Jasmine or Mulan on screen — not the Broadway veterans who actually sang those notes. TheThings Celebrity’s rundown of “10 Celebs You Didn’t Know Played Disney Princesses” pulls back the curtain on the split-role arrangements Disney has used for decades, pairing one actress for dialogue with another for the singing. The result is a roster of stage and screen talent that casual viewers rarely connect to the animated heroines they know by heart.

• Lea Salonga sang both Princess Jasmine in Aladdin (1992) and the title role in Mulan (1998), making her the only performer to provide the singing voice for two official Disney princesses.
• Anika Noni Rose voiced both the speaking and singing parts of Princess Tiana in 2009’s The Princess and the Frog, earning praise for numbers like “Almost There.”
• Salonga and Linda Larkin, her speaking counterpart on Jasmine, were both named Disney Legends in 2011.

Lea Salonga’s Double Duty

Before she became a Tony winner for Miss Saigon, Lea Salonga was already lending her voice to one of the most-played duets of the early ’90s. She sang Princess Jasmine opposite Brad Kane’s Aladdin on “A Whole New World,” the Oscar-winning ballad, while Linda Larkin handled Jasmine’s spoken dialogue throughout the film. Six years later, Salonga returned for Mulan, singing “Reflection” as Ming-Na Wen delivered the character’s lines — the split-voice setup that made Salonga the rare performer credited on two separate princess soundtracks.

Disney formally recognized that dual contribution in 2011, naming both Salonga and Larkin Disney Legends the same year. It’s a piece of trivia that tends to surprise even longtime fans, since the singing and speaking performances blend seamlessly enough on screen that most viewers assume it’s one actress doing both.

Anika Noni Rose’s All-In-One Performance

Unlike Salonga’s split arrangement, Anika Noni Rose handled everything for Princess Tiana — dialogue and vocals — when The Princess and the Frog hit theaters in 2009. The Tony winner, known for her Dreamgirls stage work, brought a soulful delivery to numbers like “Almost There” that critics singled out as one of the film’s strongest elements.

Salonga is the only performer to sing lead for two different Disney princesses on screen.

The Speaking-Versus-Singing Split

The video’s larger point is how often Disney splits a princess role in two. Irene Bedard provided both the speaking voice and the physical likeness for Pocahontas in the 1995 film, while Judy Kuhn handled the singing, including “Colors of the Wind.” That arrangement mirrors what Disney did with Jasmine and would later echo in other productions where a vocalist with Broadway chops steps in purely for the musical numbers.

The feature also runs through performers who did handle both jobs themselves — Jodi Benson as Ariel in The Little Mermaid, Paige O’Hara as Belle in Beauty and the Beast, and Kristen Bell as Elsa in Frozen — as a contrast to the divided-role cases. It’s a distinction that matters to voice-acting credits but almost never registers with the audience singing along at home, and it’s the same kind of Broadway-to-animation pipeline covered in the untold truth of Lin-Manuel Miranda, another stage performer whose animated work outran his theater résumé in the public eye.

That pipeline hasn’t slowed down. Disney has kept leaning on stage talent for its animated musical numbers well past the classics covered here, the same way “What Else Can I Do?” from Encanto put Diane Guerrero and Stephanie Beatriz’s vocals front and center years later. Salonga, notably, still holds the distinction the video highlights: two princesses, one voice, and a Disney Legends plaque to show for it.