jonathan taylor thomas did the voice of young simba in lion king.
jonathan taylor thomas did the voice of young simba in lion king.
who does the voice of young simba in lion king?
jonathan taylor thomas
matthew broderick provided the speaking voice of adult simba. the first actor to be assigned to "the lion king", broderick learned of the role while he was on vacation in ireland, where he received a telephone call from his agent informing him that the directors were interested in casting him as simba after seeing his film "ferris bueller's day off" (1986). the directors decided to cast him as simba because they felt that he was "perfect" for the role; according to producer don hahn, broderick's voice resembled "the kind of character who could be irresponsible and likeable, but you also felt that he could come back in a very heroic way." minkoff recalled that the actor "was able to humanize the hero character ... and give simba a lot of depth", preventing the hero from "becoming 2-dimensional" using "brought a great deal of sensitivity and thoughtfulness to the role along with sincerity and a sense of humor." jonathan taylor thomas, who was starring as randy taylor on the television sitcom "home improvement" at the time, was cast as the speaking voice of young simba. his appearance and personality would later serve as creative inspiration for supervising animator mark henn.
simba
hal hinson of "the washington post" gave the character a negative review. labeling timon and pumbaa the only interesting characters in "the lion king", hinson questioned simba's role as the film's hero. kenneth turan of the "los angeles times "agreed, "a movie's heroes may have their names above the title, but often as not it's the sidekicks who get the real work done." turan went on to pan simba, describing him as "irritatingly callow." chris hick of the "deseret news" complained about the fact that simba and the other "characters in "the lion king" are not as warm and fuzzy as other disney animated features," crediting this with making "the film a bit tougher to warm [up] to." comingsoon.net strongly panned simba as a lead character, writing, "typically for disney animated fare, it's the hero who is the weak link being both blandly designed and blandly performed." acknowledging the character's shakespearean origins, "the baltimore sun"s stephen hunter gave simba a negative review, writing, "alas ...simba stands in for hamlet, but he's a lot less complicated; in fact, he's less complicated than morris the cat or sylvester." hunter continued, "simba the exile is even less interesting than simba the prince." christopher null of contactmusic.com was critical of weaver's performance as the singing voice of young simba, writing, "if there's anything annoying about the film, it's the singing. young simba sounds like a young michael jackson ... you almost don't want him to succeed." however, null reacted more positively towards broderick's performance.
simba