Jodi Benson
Jodi Benson
Jodi Marie Marzorati Benson is an American actress, voice actress, and soprano singer. She is best known for providing both the speaking and the singing voice of Disney's Princess Ariel in The Little Mermaid and its sequel, prequel, and television series. Benson voiced the character Barbie in the 1999 movie Toy Story 2, the 2010 Academy Award winning movie Toy Story 3 and the Toy Story toon Hawaiian Vacation. For her contributions to the Disney company, Benson was named a...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActress
Date of Birth10 October 1961
CountryUnited States of America
What I look for in a project or partner is integrity and character; I love the concept of family entertainment and crosses over the generations, where you can sit kids with their grandparents and everyone has a good time. Those are the qualities that I want to bring to viewers.
What we try to do at Disney and through Disney character voices is really maintain the integrity of our classic characters at all costs. So Ariel needs to be me for every project, and if there are any other Ariels floating around out there, it's not necessarily Disney.
Homeschooling has given us some wonderful flexibility and some great life experiences, especially with our son.
I homeschool, so the start of the day is reading Bible scripture, memorization, and prayer.
I really like worship music. It settles my soul. Gets me back on track. The lyrics are almost like a prayer, so it's my go-to.
I pretty much came out of the womb singing. I think I sang all the time.
I love working for Disney! They are my family.
Anything that has to do with Disney and Pixar, I am on board with. That is where my heart and family are. So when they call, I jump.
Ever since the kids were babies, we have treated them with respect. We are the mom and dad for sure, but we look for opportunities for us to sit down and say, 'How are things going for you? Is there anything that we can do as parents to help you? Let's all come up with a solution together.' We work better as a team.
I want to live outside of the box, and I definitely don't want to put God in a box, so I want to be able to dream big and kind of let that go of my small-mindedness.
Connecting with the kids is a great joy for me. I love meeting them backstage or at a signing event. I am overwhelmed when I meet kids who struggle with terminal illnesses.
The thing that I enjoy about animation is the fact that it is unbridled, and there are no boundaries; when you are in the room, you don't have to focus on your clothing, make-up, hair, your choreography or your blocking; you really do have total freedom.
I can only speak for my husband and myself, but we don't feel like we could do any of this parenting without our faith.
I grew up with Cinderella. So that was my go-to Disney film, definitely. It was princess-related, and coming from a smaller area in Illinois and wanting to do something greater than myself in Broadway, that was a film that I could really relate to.