Nala (The Lion King) in "The Lion King" (1994) as the daughter of Sarafina and the best friend of Simba, who she often accompanies on his adventures throughout the Pride Lands. Simba invites Nala to visit the forbidden Elephant Graveyard with him, despite his father Mufasa's orders. The cubs are soon ambushed by Shenzi, Banzai and Ed, a trio of hyenas chosen by Simba's treacherous uncle Scar to kill Simba in order to improve his own chances of becoming king, but are ultimately rescued by Mufasa. The following day, however, Nala is devastated to learn from Scar that both Simba and Mufasa have perished
Simba of inspiration. Before "The Lion King", Henn's experience as a supervising animator was limited to predominantly female characters; he had just recently completed work on Ariel from "The Little Mermaid" (1989), Belle from "Beauty and the Beast" (1991) and Jasmine from "Aladdin" (1992). When he became involved with "The Lion King", Henn initially expressed interest in animating the film's villain, Scar, because he wanted to do "something different." However, producer Don Hahn felt that he was better suited for animating Simba. Henn approaches animating new characters by "put[ting himself] into the character’s situation." Simba proved to be a challenge because