page_title: Jasmine (Disney character)
section_title: Voice
hierarchical_section_title: Jasmine (Disney character) / Development / Voice
caption_attribution_description: English: Magic City Comic Con 2015
context_page_description: Jasmine is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Pictures' 31st animated feature film Aladdin. Voiced by American actress Linda Larkin – with a singing voice provided by Filipina singer Lea Salonga – Jasmine is the spirited Princess of Agrabah, who has grown weary of her life of palace confinement. Despite an age-old law stipulating that the princess must marry a prince in time for her upcoming birthday, Jasmine is instead determined to marry someone she loves for who he is as opposed to what he owns. Created by directors Ron Clements and John Musker with screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, Jasmine is based on Badroulbadour, a princess who appears in the One Thousand and One Nights folktale "Aladdin and the Magical Lamp."
  Originally conceived as a spoiled, materialistic princess, the writers eventually rewrote Jasmine into a stronger and more prominent heroine following the elimination of Aladdin's mother from the script, while borrowing story elements from the romantic comedy Roman Holiday.
context_section_description: The casting of American actor and comedian Robin Williams as the Genie inspired the studio to recruit similarly talented voice actors capable of matching his pace. The filmmakers had originally envisioned Jasmine's voice as similar to that of actress Lauren Bacall. Jasmine's speaking voice is provided by American actress Linda Larkin. The role was only one of several auditions Larkin had scheduled during the same week in which she auditioned for Aladdin, and she originally underestimated the scope of the project, joking, "I thought it was going to be something like DuckTales (sic)." Initially presented with only a few pages of the screenplay, Larkin found that she was particularly drawn to Jasmine's "spirit of activism," in addition to the ways in which character was both similar to and different from previous Disney heroines. Princesses Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora had been childhood favorites of the actress. Larkin's first audition was held in a Burbank, California recording studio, in which she performed solely for the film's casting director. The side used for Larkin's first audition was the scene in which Jasmine meets Aladdin in the marketplace –  their first encounter. Jasmine's line 'It's all so magical' helped convince Larkin that she was "meant" to voice the character. Although Larkin's voice was significantly different from what the filmmakers had originally envisioned for the character, her interpretation gradually changed their minds.
  In the form of an extensive series of callbacks, Larkin returned to the studio on several different occasions over the next few months. While the audience of studio executives and filmmakers continued to increase, the amount of actresses competing for the role gradually decreased accordingly as the audition process neared completion. Larkin's final audition lasted a total of four hours, during which she read through the entire script for the first time. The animators were also provided with an opportunity to animate to Larkin's voice for the first time. The actress was finally cast several months later, by which time she had nearly forgotten she had ever auditioned. Six months into recording, however, Larkin was forced to re-audition for the role by Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, who felt that the actress' voice lacked the authority required to voice a princess. However, Clements and Musker disagreed with him, and managed to trick Katzenberg into not firing Larkin by staging a fake recording session during which they had the actress speak lower and slower in Katzenberg's presence, only to have her return to her natural voice thereafter. Larkin recorded only one scene alongside her co-stars Williams and Scott Weinger, the voice of Aladdin. Apart from some rough, unfinished storyboards and drawings, Larkin did not see much of her character until the film was finally screened at the Museum of Modern Art.
  Before discovering Larkin, Disney had been insisting on auditioning exclusively performers who were capable of singing as well as they could act. However, after Williams' recruitment, the studio relented in favor of casting "strong actors" instead. When Larkin first auditioned for the role, "A Whole New World," Jasmine's only surviving song, had not yet been written; she admitted, "there's no way I would have even auditioned ... if there had been a song from the beginning." After writing Jasmine's first song, the filmmakers asked Larkin if she would be interested in recording it and providing the character's singing voice. Larkin immediately declined, joking, "I do [sing] ... but not like a princess!" Thus, Disney decided to recruit a singer who could mimic Larkin's speaking voice instead, despite the actress' fear that the studio would completely replace her with a professional singer altogether.
  Jasmine's singing voice is provided by Filipina singer and actress Lea Salonga. Salonga's Tony Award-winning performance in the musical Miss Saigon helped her garner the interest of casting director Albert Tavares, who proceeded to leave a note for the singer on the stage doo
caption: Actress Linda Larkin provides Jasmine's speaking voice; six months after being cast, Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg insisted that she was required to re-audition for the role.
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