When Tiffany Boone first auditioned for her role in Mufasa: The Lion King, she had no idea that the submission would be for consideration to become the beloved queen Sarabi, but like many things in life, she was ready to take a chance on herself and put her best foot forward.

The character’s name was changed during her audition, so at the time, Boone thought she was casting her net to play a feisty and vulnerable chick. This helped to lay the groundwork for her finding a voice for the role.

“When I found out I was playing Sarabi, I had a chat with Barry Jenkins about how he saw the character and what he wanted, and I asked him, do you want me to sound like the prior performances, like Alfre Woodard?” Boone recalled to Blavity’s Shadow and Act. “He was like, ‘No, you have the freedom to create the path to where she ends up.’ And so for me, I wanted to put in that feistiness and that vulnerability, but also we know she becomes a queen. We know the rich, deep performances of those prior actresses, so I still wanted her to feel like royalty while still being a reality to her voice, and so between all those experiences, I came up with what you hear in Mufasa.”

Not only was voicing Sarabi a journey and a process, but Boone also had to overcome a personal hurdle: a fear of singing in front of others.

“From the beginning, when I was auditioning, originally, no one mentioned that I’d have to sing,” she explained. “And then, in the last audition, they asked me to sing a song, and I have or had a fear of singing in front of people, so I was like, you want me to do what?”

After working alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda, who was responsible for writing the original songs featured in Mufasa, Boone overcame that fear and delivered a beautiful duet alongside the voice of Mufasa, Aaron Pierre. Their song, “Tell Me It’s You,” has officially been Oscar shortlisted for best original song.

“When we meet her in the original, she’s just a perfect wife and mother and queen, and first of all, I think you know as a woman that that’s impossible. There’s no way to be perfect, right?” said Boone. “We’re only seeing a small part of her, and we think she is just this all-knowing, wise, perfect lioness.”

In the new film, Boone says it’s been interesting to learn about Sarabi’s path to queendom and the origins of the love story between her and Mufasa.

“She was a being before she was attached to Mufasa,” she said. “Before, she was Simba’s mother. I hope that little girls or people watching the film can see that we’re bigger than just being mothers and wives, and we’re our own complicated creatures, so I always love to play women who are complicated and get to be more than just some man’s wife, you know.”

“I think, being a lover of the original and having your heart broken when Mufasa dies, but we barely even really get to know him in that original, I think getting to learn his story, getting to see that he didn’t come from royalty, that he was born an orphan, that it deepens this whole legacy of The Lion King, and I think it makes you love Mufasa even more. Getting to know Scar’s backstory makes you empathize with him. It just deepens your connection to all the characters.”

Before becoming the voice of Sarabi in this prequel version of The Lion King, which focuses on Mufasa’s journey from an orphaned cub to king of the Pride Lands, Boone had a tender spot for the original 1997 film. Simba’s story is very similar to her childhood.

If she could speak to that version of herself today, Boone says she would tell her that she’s in for a ride that she can’t even fathom and that her father would be watching out for her along the way, especially since she lost him at a young age.

“My connection to The Lion King, when I was little, was through Simba because my father passed away when I was three, and I just saw such an incredible life that I could have in the way that Simba did after losing his father,” she said. “So I would tell that little girl it’s gonna be okay. Your life is gonna be bigger and better than you could ever imagine.”

Mufasa: The Lion King is now playing in theaters worldwide.