Anika Noni Rose Reflects on Impact of ‘Princess and the Frog’

Amid The Princess and the Frog celebrating its 15th anniversary, star Anika Noni Rose is looking back on starring in the animated film.

In an interview with People magazine published Wednesday, the actress reflected on lending her voice for the film’s starring role as Princess Tiana.

She recalled that during her final audition, she “burst into tears” while walking the hallway in Walt Disney Animation Studios and seeing art from previous films.

“I just couldn’t believe it. I always wanted to be a Disney voice, always,” she said. “I didn’t have to be a person. That didn’t matter to me. I would have happily been a mushroom. I would have been a tree. I would have been a rock. I would have been whatever.”

“I was walking through the halls of the history of my childhood, and at that same time, I felt in my bones this was for me. I felt it.”

Years later, she said it’s still “mind-blowing” to see the impact Tiana had on young girls at the time and still does now, as well as how she’s allowed “to touch in with children in a different way.” She has also “seen children of all different ethnicities, all different backgrounds” wearing her character’s signature green gown at events.

“When I’m thinking of Black or brown-skinned adults, we spent so much time growing up trying to fit into another standard of beauty. And now, at this point, those children, these new children, are comfortable within themselves in different ways,” she said. “They don’t think anything of putting on their Tiana dress. You can’t tell them they’re not Tiana. It’s not about the fact they’re not brown. They still feel like they’re Tiana.”

“Brown babies feel like they are regal, and their friends, who may not be brown, look at them and absolutely see that. [They say,] ‘Yes, you are regal, and you are a princess,’” she added.

The Princess and the Frog was released on Dec. 11, 2009. Bruno Campos, Jennifer Cody, Keith David, Randy Newman, John Goodman and Oprah Winfrey also voice-starred in Disney’s fairytale set in Jazz Age-era New Orleans and centered on young Princess Tiana and a frog prince who wants to return to human form.

“It’s those little waves that make changes when these kids want to be in the school play, and they want to be the princess,” Rose said. “Who’s going to tell them they can’t be the princess at this point? Nobody, because we see it. It’s there.”