Halle Bailey has revealed just how important it was for her to keep her natural hair in the live action remake of The Little Mermaid.
The film, which was released in the UK on Friday 26 May, sees Halle take on the titular character of Ariel, a mermaid who’s one wish is to see what’s beyond the sea. While Halle keeps Ariel’s signature red hair for the film, she decided to keep her natural locs for the role but dyed them a copper colour instead. And she looks so good.
“It was super important for me to have my natural hair in this film,” Halley told Ebony magazine. “I was really grateful to [director] Rob Marshall, because he wanted to keep my locs. It’s always important to have somebody to cosign.”
Halle added that she’d had her locs since she was five years old. “So they’re a huge part of who I am,” the 23-year-old continued. “We need to be able to see ourselves. We need to be able to see our hair on big screens like this, so that we know that it’s beautiful and more than acceptable.”
In an interview with Glamour, Halle described just how impactful it was seeing a Black Disney princess in The Princess and the Frog when she was growing up.
“I know how much of that movie changed my whole perspective on life,” she said. “Wow, this is possible. Black princesses are possible. We deserve to take up these spaces too.”
Halle added that her and The Little Mermaid decided to keep Ariel’s red hair because that’s a “very iconic part of her”. “But I really did admire the fact that because I’m a Black woman and I have locs, [the producers] wanted to incorporate that into Ariel’s look,” she added.
To get the look, Halle Bailey worked with hairstylist Camille Friend to dye her roots red and wrap her locks in the same hued hair.
“I wrapped Halle’s locs with 30 inches of custom-coloured and perm hair,” Camille said. “The hair was wrapped around each of her locs to achieve the style and loose pieces were added to achieve the loose wave, and was made up of three shades of red and has a wavy texture. When Halle was in the water, the hair would move freely, and on land, it would flow downward.”
The result? Pure magic.