Yahoo News ‘The Little Mermaid’ Makeup Artist Says He Wanted Ursula to Look More Like Melissa McCarthy Than a Drag Queen
“Although [having been] inspired by drag queens, I didn't want her to look like a drag queen,” said Peter Smith King of transforming Melissa McCarthy into Ursula
Valerie Macon/Getty ; Walt Disney Studios/YouTube
The makeup artist behind The Little Mermaid live-action film is standing by his decisions to make Melissa McCarthy’s character Ursula look the way she did, because as he's further clarifying, he wanted Ursula to feel human (despite the fact that she's a sea witch).
Seasoned pro Peter Smith King — who also goes by Peter Swords King — was the center of backlash before the movie's release, due to the fact that he was a non-drag artist in charge of recreating the Disney persona originally inspired by drag queen Divine for the 1989 animation.
Shortly after a clip of McCarthy’s transformation into the famous sea witch hit social media, members of the drag and LGBTQ+ communities were quick to call out the missing piece of the Hollywood puzzle.
Once the film hit theaters on May 26, King responded to the feedback in an interview with Insider, calling the statements “ridiculous” and “offensive.”
"Why can't I do as good a job as a queer makeup artist?" he said in his chat with the outlet. “That's trying to claim it and that's fine, if that's what they wanna do, but don't put people down because they're not what they want it to be."
He also defended his choices by noting that, unlike the first movie, he did not draw inspiration from drag outside of certain techniques.
In a new interview with Allure, he explained more in detail his motive behind that.
“Although [having been] inspired by drag queens, I didn't want her to look like a drag queen,” King said of McCarthy. “I wanted it to still be Melissa, and I think she liked the fact that it was still her, so we could see it was her.”
King further told the publication that he wanted to steer away from Ursula’s cartoonish features as to not entirely put the focus on her appearance — though her eyebrows (which King intentionally made uneven) drew tons of attention nonetheless.
The expert also added, “We thought it would be funny if her makeup was bad and that she'd done it herself.
In short, he wanted her to appear human.
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Brendon Thorne/Getty
McCarthy, 52, has been open about her long-standing respect and admiration for the drag community. She’s been a “huge fan” of the culture since her teen years, she told Deadline at The Little Mermaid premiere in May.
Even watching the first film during her nanny days, the actress always felt that Ursula carried Divine’s aura.
“I was like, the makeup, the look, the attitude. And now we know that yeah, she was, of course, based on Divine," she added.
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