To celebrate the 100th anniversary of The Walt Disney Company, the studio released a short, Once Upon a Studio, on Disney Plus. In the short film, a hybrid of animation and live-action, animated characters from the earliest years in Disney’s history to the present get together to take a group photo outside the real-life studio.
In Once Upon a Studio, Genie, originally from Aladdin (1992), appears as part of the cast. In one scene, Olaf (from Frozen) trips and falls, to which Genie quips “I haven’t seen a fall like that since Rome!”
Robin Williams, the iconic comedian and voice actor of Genie in the original animated film, died in 2014. The joke made by Genie in the new short is not a recycled line from Aladdin, and doesn’t appear in the script at all. Some quotes in the short, such as Scar’s “I’m surrounded by idiots!” line, have been made famous in the character’s film of origin, but Genie’s line has never been heard before.
Genie has been portrayed and voiced by a number of actors other than Williams. Dan Castellaneta, most known as the voice of Homer Simpson, took over from Williams in the Aladdin TV series. In most video games, the character is voiced by actor Jim Meskimen. As for live-action, Will Smith took over the role for the live-action remake in 2019, and James M. Inglehart won a Tony Award for his portrayal of the character in the Broadway musical take on the 1992 film.
Is Genie in Once Upon a Studio actually Robin Williams?
As confirmed by Variety, Genie’s appearance in Once Upon a Studio was voiced by Robin Williams. According to the outlet, The Walt Disney Company obtained permission from Williams’ estate to use archival recordings of his voice in the new film.
“We tried to take [Williams’ estate] on the journey with us to say, ‘We’ve got this very special short that we’re doing. Robin as the genie means so much to so many people and we would really love to involve him,’” Bradford Simonsen, producer of Once Upon a Studio, told the publication.
Did Disney use AI to replicate Robin Williams’ voice?
Regarding the never-heard-before voice work in the short, the studio used outtakes from the production of Aladdin, circa 1991. Then, the filmmakers digitally pieced them together for the character’s new appearance to form cohesive dialogue, writing the screenplay around the pre-existing lines recorded by Robin Williams.
According to Brad Simonsen, “Dan [Abraham, director of Once Upon a Studio] listened to the outtakes from the original recording and he found those little bites that we could use. We went back to the estate and said, ‘This is what we hope to do.’”
It has been speculated online that, largely due to the fact that Williams’ new voice work was previously unheard, Once Upon a Studio used artificial intelligence to create the recording required for the new film. Recently, this has been used in an upcoming release of the Beatles demo song, used to digitally clean up and isolate John Lennon’s vocals, over 40 years after his death.
However, this is not the case with Robin Williams’ newly-released voice work. Zelda Williams, actress and daughter of the late comedian, is strongly against the use of AI to replicate her father’s voice. Earlier this month, Zelda Williams spoke out against AI, which has been a majorly contested subject by actors, as part of the ongoing Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strikes against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).
“I am not an impartial voice in SAG’s fight against AI,” Zelda wrote on her Instagram page. “I’ve witnessed for YEARS how many people want to train these models to create/recreate actors who cannot consent, like Dad. This isn’t theoretical, it is very very real.”
Robin Williams’ voice has been used by many AI apps, alongside other celebrities with iconic voices, and the internet is filled with attempts to replicate the comedian’s vocals to say whatever the user has typed out.
“I’ve already heard AI used to get [Robin Williams’] ‘voice’ to say whatever people want and while I find it personally disturbing, the ramifications go far beyond my own feelings,” Zelda continued in her post. “Living actors deserve a chance to create characters with their choices, to voice cartoons, to put their HUMAN effort and time into the pursuit of performance.”
“These recreations are, at their very best, a poor facsimile of greater people,” Zelda concluded, “but at their worst, a horrendous Frankensteinian monster, cobbled together from the worst bits of everything this industry is, instead of what it should stand for.”
The filmmakers of Once Upon a Studio have not publicly discussed using AI to isolate Williams’ vocals for the production. Williams left his estate to his three children after his death in 2014, meaning that Zelda Williams most likely has the ability to prevent any digital replication of her father’s voice.
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