4. Jeremy Irons didn’t sing all of Be Prepared
Jeremy Irons is superb as the voice of the evil Scar and Disney were so impressed with his performance that the design team put many of his facial features into Scar’s look (the same would be done for Rowan Atkinson as Zazu). And while all of his dialogue scenes are great, perhaps is best moment is the song Be Prepared. So it’s interesting to note that he didn’t sing all of it.
Everything was going fine, but when Irons shouting the line, “you won’t get a sniff without me” towards the end of the song, he blew out his voice – meaning he couldn’t finish the song.
In his place was legendary voice actor Jim Cummings who filled in for the rest of the song. This means that Cummings not only had to do an impression of Jeremy Irons, he had to sing like him too.
And if you listen to the song, you would never know the difference.
Originally published June 25, 2014. Updated April 15, 2018.
