The mother was the French voice of the little mermaid in the Disney cartoon thirty-three years ago, the son is that of the prince in the new film: for the actors Claire Guyot and Martin Faliu, this tale is a family story .See also on Konbini “It’s extremely touching and it binds us all the more to have this story in common, when we are already very close”, tells the young dubbing actor to AFP. “When Disney chose him, I was very moved, happy for him and very proud too: I thought that the story was pretty and the continuity very beautiful”, adds his mother. A great name in dubbing, Claire Guyot is the French voice of the Americans Sarah Michelle Gellar (heroine of the series Buffy against the vampires), Teri Hatcher (Desperate Housewives) or Winona Ryder. A rich career launched by the role of Ariel, the little mermaid of the Disney classic, released in 1989 in the United States and in 1990 in France. Based on Andersen’s tale, this animated film marked several generations. “I was only 23 years old, it was my first big role and I didn’t realize at all the impact it was going to have”, remembers the actress. Three decades later, it is she who supervised, as artistic director, the French version of the new film in live action, in theaters since Wednesday. In this capacity, for the voice of Prince Eric (played by the Anglo-American Jonah Hauer-King), she proposed the name of his son as well as that of three other candidates. The choice fell to Disney, on “only artistic” criteria and without preferential treatment, she underlines. “Parallels” “Martin’s choice has nothing to do with the fact that he is my son, on the contrary, it could have played against him”, assures Claire Guyot. “Disney lets nothing pass”, adds Martin Faliu, for whom the status of “son of” does not help in dubbing: “The voice must stick to the role, there must be consistency. When it doesn’t stick, it shows right away and there’s a backlash.” main male voice of the recent video game Hogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy from the Harry Potter universe. His mother, who directed him for The Little Mermaid, judges that he has done “very nicely”. “It’s always tricky when you put your own child on a big project like that, especially with the symbolic passing of the torch,” notes Claire Guyot. “We have no interest in crashing and, if the result had been average, I would have been very uncomfortable.” The son, he retains the “many parallels” thirty-three years apart . “I am the original performer of an original song by Alan Menken [compositeur attitré de Disney, ndlr], like my mother at the time”, he smiles. An additional brick in this family story, Simon Faliu, Martin’s young half-brother, doubles the Flounder fish. The actor Thierry Ragueneau, French voice of Prince Eric in the cartoon, this time lends his voice to that of a sailor. And Claire Guyot herself makes a short appearance in the form of a “wink” with two sentences said by a flower seller.
