Of all the actors who’ve played Hamlet over the years, I think the only person who totally nailed what I was going for was Jonathan Taylor Thomas (voice of Young Simba in The Lion King). A lot of people don’t realize that my script for The Lion King was based on my play Hamlet, but when you stop to think about it, you start to notice all the similarities. Dead dad, evil uncle, revenge plot. But there were some major differences too. You know how in The Lion King the meerkat and the warthog sing “Hakuna Matata?” In the original Hamlet the monkey had that song. I can’t even remember now why I made that change. It was probably one of JTT’s many demands (the price of working with greatness).
