Beyoncé Hasn’t Met All of Her Costars in The Lion King Yet, Even Though the Film Is Done

The Lion King may be done filming, but the star Beyoncé still hasn’t met many of her costars. The comedian Billy Eichner revealed as much while talking about what it was like to work on the upcoming Disney live-action remake. To no one’s surprise, the pop star was in full-on stealth mode while recording her voice for the part of Nala. There is a good reason, though, that Eichner hasn’t been blessed by Beyoncé’s presence: The pair didn’t have any scenes together.

“I have had no direct contact nor should I because I’m not worthy of being in her presence,” Eichner joked recently to Us Weekly. “I don’t have many scenes with her in the movie. We only exchange a few lines, but me, Seth Rogen and Donald Glover, we all recorded together. We recorded ‘Hakuna Matata’ together.”

One person who did end up working alongside Beyoncé on the film is the Atlanta mastermind and rapper Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino), who plays Simba in the film. ”Seth and I did ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’ together before Beyoncé and Donald [came] in.”

As for Beyoncé and Elton John’s remake of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” Eichner has previously confirmed that it’s going to hit hard. “I’m telling you, it’s fucking good,” he said back in March on the Keep It! podcast. “Honestly, it made me cry. I was not expecting that… I think a lot of people are going to cry. It’s a beautiful movie.”

John talked about remaking some of the key songs from the soundtrack with Beyoncé in February 2018, saying, “They need to have a new end-credits song. There’s going to be four of our songs in the film, from the original: ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight?,’ ‘Hakuna Matata,’ ‘I Just Can’t Wait to Be King,’ and ‘Circle of Life.’ And then there will be an end, closing song, and we’ve been speaking to Beyoncé’s people and hopefully Tim [Rice] and I and her can cook up something. It will be great to work with her.”

Eichner, on the other hand—who didn’t have the same access to Beyoncé that John, of course, did—is still holding out hope that he’ll get to meet her soon. “Maybe at the premiere,” he added. “We’ll see.” As Shahadi Wright Joseph, who voices young Nala in the film, recently put it to W, “I kind of freaked out [when I heard about Beyoncé]. Like, no pressure or anything.”