Full ‘The Lion King’ Remake Cast Revealed, Beyonce Confirmed As Nala
We knew thatJon Favreau’s remake ofThe Lion Kingwould be stacked with talent, but seeing it all laid out in one place is kind of astonishing.
Disney has officially revealed the the fullThe Lion Kingremake cast, finally confirming thatBeyoncé Knowles-Carterwill play Nala alongsideDonald Glover’s Simba. That duo is surrounded by a murderer’s row of talent, with names both obvious and surprising taking on this cast of beloved characters.
Look at this list of names: Donald Glover as Simba, Beyonce Knowles-Carter as Nala,James Earl Jonesreprising his role as Mufasa,Chietwel Ejioforas Scar,Alfre Woodardas Sarabi,John Oliveras Zazu,John Kaneas Rafiki,Seth Rogenas Pumbaa,Billy Eichneras Timon,Eric Andreas Azizi,Florence Karumbaas Shenzi, andKeegan-Michael Keyas Kamari. Look, I’m as skeptical as anyone when it comes to a “live-action” remake ofThe Lion King, but all of those names in one cast list is more than enough get me interested.
#TheLionKing. 2019. 🦁👑pic.twitter.com/UMJo18FwDt
— Disney (@Disney)July 15, 2025
Live-action definitely deserves those quotation marks. Jon Favreau is going to use the same technology that he utilized in his (very good!) remake ofThe Jungle Bookto bring this film to life, creating a cast of photorealistic digital animals and putting the voices of great actors in their mouths. But unlikeThe Jungle Book, there are no human characters inThe Lion King. That means that this is technically an animated film, a CG world full of CG characters. Is this live-action? Is it animation? Technically, it’s animation masquerading as live-action, which means we probably need to come up with a new word to describe this style sooner or later.
The Lion Kingopens onJuly 19, 2019. We saw some footage earlier this year andthought it looked spectacular. Here’s the very familiar official synopsis:
