25 years after the theatrical release of the Disney animated classic, THE LION KING roars again in a visually dazzling remake. Desde Hollywood was present at the recent global press conference, and you can read below some of the most interesting things said.

The wildly talented artists that took the stage alongside director Jon Favreau included Eric Andre, Keegan-Michael Key, Florence Kasumba, Billy Eichner, Lebo M, Hans Zimmer, John Kani, Shahadi Wright Joseph, JD McCrary, Seth Rogen, Alfre Woodard, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Donald Glover, and Jacqueline Coley.

THE LION KING will be released in theaters on July 19.

JON FAVREAU on combining technology with art

“Jungle Book, I’ve been working on both these movies back to back for about six years. And all the new technology that was available, I had finally learned how to use it by the end of Jungle Book. And at that point, with the team that we had assembled for it, all the artists, because a lot of attention is paid to the technology. But really, these are handmade films. There is animators working on every shot, every environment that you see in the film other than actually, there’s one shot that’s a real photographic shot but everything else is built from scratch by artists. And we had a great team assembled. And then the idea of using what we learned on that and the new technologies that were available to make a story like Lion King with its great music, great characters, and great story, it seemed like a wonderful, logical conclusion. And so that was something we set out to do.”

DONALD GLOVER on how Jon Favreau tackled the story

“I guess Jon was really good about the circle of life having a major hand in it. I really feel that it’s good to make movies that are global and metropolitan in the sense of the citizens of the world. Like making sure that we talk about like how connected we are right now. Because it’s the first time we’ve really been able to talk to everybody at the same time. So I felt yeah. It was just like a necessary thing. I felt like he was really good about talking about that very, very upfront in the beginning of it. And he’s like, this is what… because he kind of did it in the Jungle Book, too. Where like the Jungle Book story is the same. But the idea of like yeah, humans, their tricks are their power, and they can help everybody. Switching that and making the story the same, I think the same thing happens in this in such a great way.”

CHIWITEL EJIOFOR on playing ‘Scar’

“I felt that it was just really interesting to go into that psychology, to really sort of try and uncover that and to look at it. I’m a huge fan of what was done before obviously like everybody else. Jeremy Irons and just sort of really going back in and exploring that character again from a slightly different perspective and seeing what was there. And it’s such an incredible part to play. And so complex and all of that. And having empathy, not sympathy, but empathizing with the character and trying to understand them and trying to get underneath that. And such a rich, villainous character to play. So a wonderful experience for me.”

SETH ROGEN on working with Billy Eichner to portray ‘Timon’ and ‘Pumbaa’

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll start. It was a lot of improvisation with Billy. Yeah. And we were actually together every time that we recorded, which is a very rare gift to have as someone who is trying to be funny in an animated film, of which I’ve done a lot, and you’re often just alone in there. And I think you can really tell that we’re playing off of each other. It’s an incredibly naturalistic feeling. And they really captured Billy. That is what is amazing. I would say, he essentially played himself on a TV show for years. And this character is more Billy than that character somehow. It’s like endlessly, it’s remarkable to me how his character specifically makes me laugh so hard. […] The fact that it has like a looseness applied to probably the most technologically incredible movie ever made is like what is an amazing contrast. It feels like people in a room just talking. And then it’s refined to a degree that is inconceivable in a lot of ways. That mixture is what I think is so incredible and that’s what Jon really captured in an amazing way.”

ALFRE WOODARD on playing ‘Sarabi’

“It is called the Lion King. But everyone knows that the lionesses are actually the rulers, the protectors, the nurturers, the hunters of the pride. And so Jon was able to give us the space to be that. One of the first encounters I had with wild life was maybe almost 40 years ago in a conserve. And it was happening up on the lionesses. And you could hear the king in the distance. He was coming. But they were sitting and we were a little close to them. And I’ve never felt more afraid and more attracted at the same time that I realize I think that is the mother thing in most women and in some men is that at the same time, you suckle, but you also, you will eliminate anything that comes close to endangering those cubs. So I just sat in that and I did whatever Jon told me to do. “

LEBO M on improvising ‘Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba’ for the “Circle of Life” song

We created. [SINGING BRIEFLY] because I’m just looking at this. Then I keep seeing this image of Mufasa coming out. And just as I was about to leave, I turned back. I said let me do one more thing. And I went [SINGING BRIEFLY] Nants ingonyama. And that was it. It was a demo. Then I went to South Africa to be part of the new democracy. And came back. And we tried a couple of times to redo that. It just never wanted to be redone. What you hear is actually one take. There’s been one take 25 years later. And how blessed can one be that in the movie last night, I’m sitting and watching this thing. That one take we did, because it was so natural, now it’s going to outlive previous 25 years. It’s unbelievable.

JON FAVREAU on why he didn’t want to use performance-capture

“if we just motion captured their faces and put a human expression on the animal’s face, I was concerned that that would blow the illusion of it being a naturalistic documentary. We looked at a lot of the work that Hans has done. Like Planet Earth 2. All of those Attenborough BBC documentaries and how much emotion can be expressed without human performance just through music and editorial and the stories you’re telling and looking at movies like Babe that was inspiration for how we did Jungle Book, with how much expression and emotion could come out of those characters without having human performance. And so it really fell on the animator’s hands to try to figure out how to express their preferences through the language of an animal’s emotive language.”

THE LION KING will be released in theaters on July 19.

After the murder of his father, a young lion prince flees his kingdom only to learn the true meaning of responsibility and bravery.