‘The Little Mermaid’s Daveed Diggs calls stress over cast’s ethnicity “stupid”

The live action remake of The Little Mermaid is expected to easily swim to the top of the box office in its debut this weekend. The film stars Halle Bailey in the lead role, and when her casting was announced there was some grumbling from anonymous corners of the internet about an African-American woman getting the role.

Daveed Diggs voices Sebastian the crab in the film, and he thinks the diversity celebrated in the film is a beautiful thing, telling ABC Audio, “The characters are all built from the inside out. The relationships are built from the inside out. And like, everybody’s sort of preliminary stresses about the ethnicities of people like immediately seem stupid.”

Diggs thinks Bailey’s casting was “perfect,” adding “her performance throughout is so undeniable.”

The Hamilton star goes on to say that Halle’s casting means a lot to him and he’s sure it’ll mean a lot to others too.

“When you’re my age, Oh man, I never had that. You know, all the little girls my age didn’t have that,” he shares. “We weren’t able to see ourselves in this story in this way.”

Adds Diggs, “Our kids shouldn’t have to question that, right? We want them to be able to imagine themselves as anything. And so having films like this are a step towards that.”