Comedian Billy Eichner is bringing an extra dose of camp to Disney's live-action remake of The Lion King, admitting that he played the role of meerkat Timon with "gay sensibility".
In an interview with BuzzFeed, Eichner reflected on the role, originally played by openly gay voice actor Nathan Lane, saying he was grateful to continue the famous character's legacy.
“I’m glad that [director] Jon Favreau kept the tradition of Timon being played by a gay actor, with a certain type of comedic sensibility, alive,” he said, while remaining skeptical that Timon and Pumba are romantically attached.
“Timon and Pumbaa are different species - I don’t even think that’s ethically correct, you know, that they would be a couple in some way," he explained.
“I didn’t think about [Timon] being gay so much as I thought, ‘Well, I’m gay, and I have what some may consider a gay sensibility, and I’m going to bring that to the table’, just the way that Nathan did.
“I’m certainly not going to shy away from it. In fact, I lean into it more in my performances than I even do in my everyday life.”
The comedian added: “I think the way to correct that is to actually put gay characters in animated movies. I’m actually in the very early days of working on a project like that.
“One of the last frontiers for LGBT representation is animated family films.”
Seth Rogan voices Pumba in the highly anticipated remake, which also features a soundtrack from the one and only Beyoncé.
