Melissa McCarthy and Javier Bardem on ‘The Little Mermaid’

Javier Bardem and Melissa McCarthy take sibling rivalry to a new level in “The Little Mermaid” as a brother and sister who hate each other, but the actors are full of praise for each other in the real world.

They play King Triton and Ursula in the Disney movie, which opens Friday.

To play opposite each other felt “fantastic. Nobody else is gonna let us do that,” McCarthy said in a joint video interview.

“It felt beautiful, organic and an honour to be near this amazing actress and human being,” added Bardem, “but we have to hate each other.”

“That was the easy part,” quipped McCarthy as they shared a laugh. The camaraderie between the two was palpable.

“The Little Mermaid” is the classic fairy tale, following Ariel (Halle Bailey), a spirited young mermaid with a thirst for adventure. The youngest of King Triton’s daughters and the most defiant, Ariel longs to find out more about the world beyond the sea and, while visiting the surface, falls for Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King). While mermaids are forbidden from interacting with humans, Ariel follows her heart with the help of crab Sebastian (Daveed Diggs), seabird Scuttle (Awkwafina) and fish Flounder (Jacob Tremblay), and makes a deadly deal with the evil sea witch, Ursula.

Ursula and King Triton weren’t siblings in the original 1989 animated film but were introduced as such in the 2008 Broadway adaptation, and McCarthy said it was a smart decision.

“It took up very little space in the script, but it changed a lot in terms of having your family cast you out and ostracize you versus just there’s good and evil, and they don’t like each other. It puts such a different spin on our whole relationship,” she said.

McCarthy, 52, adds her trademark humour and villainous charm to Ursula. She wanted to do justice to Pat Carroll, who voiced Ursula in the original film, but also wanted to understand the character’s motives.

“When I started to break Ursula down, not just as a fan, I was like, ‘OK, I need to really study her and figure out what makes her tick.’ I always kind of start with armour and what are people’s facades and, with her, it’s the bustier, the lipstick, the voice, the attitude. But really, that’s all to kind of hide her intense loneliness, her isolation after being cast out by your family.”

After the pandemic, the idea of isolating hit differently, which helped McCarthy to not only understand Ursula but also to fall in love with her.

“Two years of being locked down and COVID-19 put a very different idea of what isolation does to our mental health and, suddenly, I had such compassion and empathy for her,” she said. “It means still knowing that she makes bad choices, but why those choices are made became a whole different thing to me.”

For his part, Spanish actor Bardem has often portrayed dark, gritty roles and hadn’t been able to share most of his movies with his children: son Leo, 12, and daughter Luna, nine. So being a part of “The Little Mermaid” meant a lot to the actor.

“I can’t wait to show it to them because it’s part of why I did it. There are many elements that make this story very appealing, artistically and personally, but having the chance to show them what I do was an important one for me. Now, I don’t know what they’re gonna think of me as a father. As King Triton, I’m sure they’re gonna recognize some stuff, like, ‘Oh, yeah, I can see that …’” the 54-year-old laughed.

For Hauer-King, playing a well known character like Prince Eric was initially “quite daunting and felt quite overwhelming,” he said in a separate video interview.

“I loved the film growing up and so you want to do the film justice, and make sure that you bring life to it in a way that feels real and enjoyable and entertaining for people … I wanted to work with the director, Rob (Marshall), on making this as interesting and rich and complex a character as I possibly could, and focus on telling the story as truthfully as possible,” Hauer-King said.

He described his co-star Bailey as a “superstar.”

“I was so struck by her kindness, and her support and her groundedness. She’s a real, kind, thoughtful person; she was very supportive of me, she really took me under her wing. I was very grateful for that friendship from day one,” he said.

Another actor who was grateful for his experience on set was Vancouver-born Jacob Tremblay, 16. He had never done a musical before and it was his first time singing so he was admittedly nervous.

Director Marshall “really made sure to make me feel comfortable and confident to mess up, and made me know that it’s OK if I made mistakes,” Tremblay said.

“He completely nailed this film. He did a great job and he was so good at working with everyone, and just made sure that everyone was having fun. I really appreciate that about him,” Tremblay said shortly before the film’s Toronto premiere last week.

It was also a new experience for the actor because he did his voice work onstage with other actors, as opposed to a recording booth by himself.

“It was me, Daveed and Awkwafina. They had cameras to capture expressions so they could implement that into the animation, and then Halle was there to read her lines to us. Rob was there to direct us. We were all there working as a team,” Tremblay said.

Like most Disney films, “The Little Mermaid” is layered with messaging about finding one’s place in the world. That rang true for the cast.

“The turn that the story has taken now, in the sense that she’s a young woman making a decision about herself or her own journey, her own destiny, and fighting for it no matter what and that’s what matters in this story,” said Bardem. “For the new generations to watch, it’s important to understand that they have the right to fight for what they think or for what they want to be in the future.”

“It’s certainly in our world now that what we don’t know or what we don’t see in the mirror seems to be very frightening to people,” McCarthy added. “You think, ‘Oh, if you’re not like me, we’re somehow enemies and we’re against each other.’ And I loved how they handled that in the script without any kind of lesson being taught. They just showed it.

“I mean, how boring the world would be if we all were exactly the same,” she continued.

Tremblay echoed her sentiments, adding, “I think it’s really important to teach this to children to be themselves, and to follow their dreams and their passions, and to pursue their interests. I think it’s important to show the younger generations and then also remind the original fans and the older generations.”

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