With The Little Mermaid having become a part of our world once again thanks to its Disney Plus release, folks can finally enjoy Disney’s most contentious live-action release in recent years from the comfort of their own homes, and perhaps even add a late tweet or two to the discourse that took over the internet prior to the film’s theatrical release.
The casting decisions, of course, were the crown jewel of said discourse. High hopes for Melissa McCarthy’s Ursula proved to pay off, while Halle Bailey’s enrapturing turn as Ariel seems to have all but extinguished the cries of her bad faith detractors. Jessica Alexander, meanwhile, made perfect use of her limited screentime with a delectably nasty portrayal of Vanessa.
But if there’s one performance that punched above its preemptive weight with all the success in the world, it was that of Daveed Diggs, who brought an infinitely refreshing take to Sebastian, Ariel’s beloved crustacean confidant.
The Little Mermaid, however, is far from Diggs’ first rodeo. Here’s where you may have recognized the fantastic new voice of Sebastian before.
Zootopia
While Diggs didn’t loan his talents for a traditional voice role in Disney’s Zootopia, the film was nevertheless the musician/actor’s Hollywood debut, having written and performed the song “Parlez-Vous Rap” for the film.
He would later go on to portray the character Paul in Disney’s Soul.
Hamilton
But as far as Diggs’ Disney-adjacent ventures go, his most prominent is, without a doubt, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical film Hamilton, which saw Diggs take on a starring dual role as the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson.
For this performance, Diggs was nominated for Outstanding Male Actor in a Limited Series or Television Movie at the 27th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, losing to Mark Ruffalo’s performance in I Know This Much Is True, which also happened to be a dual performance (Ruffalo played a pair of twins in the series).
Velvet Buzzsaw
Outside of Disney’s movies, Diggs had a role in Dan Gilroy’s black comedy horror film Velvet Buzzsaw as Damrish, an aspiring artist who gets wrapped up in some nerve-wracking supernatural events when he, along with other characters in the film, become enchanted by a series of artworks created by the deceased artist Vetril Dease.
Television roles
Diggs had a recurring role on on the sitcom Black-ish as Johan Johnson, the brother of Rainbow and Santamonica; a role he would reprise in an episode of the prequel series Mixed-ish.
But his most prominent television role, and perhaps his most prominent role outside of Hamilton and The Little Mermaid, is his turn in the series Snowpiercer, where he played Andre Layton, the quiet, dangerous former detective who resolves to investigate a series of murders aboard the train while simultaneously gathering intel for the revolution against the First Class.