Tiffany Boone shares all about playing Sarabi in 'Mufasa: The Lion King'

When Mufasa: The Lion King star Tiffany Boone auditioned for the movie, she didn’t know she would be playing the revered future queen Sarabi.

“I created the character that was in my head, [but] I didn’t know I was auditioning for Sarabi,” Boone told Us Weekly. “It had a different name on the page. So I was like, ‘This must be some new character.’”

“So when they told me who I was actually playing, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s quite a bit of pressure, actually,’” she admitted.

The actress praised director Barry Jenkins for allowing her creative freedom with young Sarabi’s personality.

“I had so much freedom to create the younger version of her and give the other layers to the character [and] the challenges that she went through to become the great queen that she becomes,” she noted.

Speaking of a young Sarabi, she said: “She wasn’t always perfect. She’s sassy … she’s sarcastic and she makes fun of the boys.”

“I think she has a sense of humor about her. She’s really vulnerable, and all those things are really fun to add to the complexity of the Sarabi that we see later on,” The Chi star added.

Mufasa: The Lion King stars Beyonce and her daughter Blue Ivy Carter, Aaron Pierre, Donald Glover, John Kani and more alongside Tiffany Boone.