This July, Shadow And Act interviewed Jason Weaver about his integral role as the singing voice of young Simba in The Lion King. In a new video with Shadow And Act, he has said exactly how close he was to nabbing the speaking role as well.

Speaking to Shadow And Act, Weaver said he was brought on to The Lion King because of Elton John’s influence. “I had literally just finished filming The Jacksons and two days later, I sang “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King in a recording session,” he said.

Disney was so impressed with him that he was nearly given the speaking role of Simba as well. But, as we know, things didn’t work out.

“They actually did offer me the role, and the director even called business affairs at Disney and was like, yo, did we close out our contract with Jonathan Taylor Thomas? Because I think we wanna make an offer to Jason Weaver to do the speaking role,” he said. “And business affairs got back to him and said, nah, we literally just closed the deal. We’re not gonna be able to offer that to Jason.”

However, they did offer him the singing role, which he said he was happy with.

“To be honest with you, I was content with that,” he said. “Disney has taken great care of me as it relates to this project, so I thank Disney for that.”

Check out the full video below.

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We know that #JasonWeaver was the young singing voice for Simba in the original #TheLionKing, but why didn’t Disney give him the speaking role as well? @itsjasonweaver explained what happened to #ShadowAndAct. ???? #jasonweaver #lionking #childactor #cast #animation #speakingrole

A post shared by Shadow And Act (@shadow_act) on Aug 9, 2019 at 1:08pm PDT

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Jason Weaver, Young Simba Singer In The Original ‘The Lion King,’ Looks Back… And Forward [EXCLUSIVE]

Photo: Getty / Disney