Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner have revealed an unusual thing about Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King.
Rogen and Eichner play Pumbaa and Timon in the movie, and didn’t get any songs written by Lin Manuel Miranda. However, they improvised their own song, which made it into the movie along with a lot of other improvised bits, which the duo deem unusual for a Disney family movie.
“Lin-Manuel Miranda had the audacity not to write us a song. And we are furious,” Eichner quipped in an interview with People. “We were wanting to get a song in the movie.”
“I’m as good a singer as The Rock,” remarked Rogen, referring to Dwayne Johnson singing Miranda’s tunes in Moana. “That I will attest, that I maintain. So if The Rock’s getting multiple Lin-Manuel songs, I can get one.”
“I agree,” Eichner added. “But we did manage a little musical moment.”
“We improvised so much and a shocking amount of that ad libbing gets into the movie and then gets animated,” he explained.
The movie includes an impromptu duet between Timon and Pumbaa, which was one of the improvised bits.
“We improvised our own song,” Rogen said and joked, “which I think Lin is going to take credit for.”
“I know,” Eichner added, joking that Miranda will “probably submit that for the Academy Awards. And then win based on our lyrics.”
“To have that type of kind of raw improv make it to the screen is pretty unusual,” Eichner noted.
Mufasa: The Lion King hits theaters on December 20.
