‘Cool Runnings’ Director Battled Disney Over Jamaican Accents, Told Cast He’d ‘Get Fired If You Don’t Sound Like Sebastian the Crab’
variety.comZack Sharf Digital News Director With Disney’s beloved sports comedy “Cool Runnings” celebrating its 30th anniversary this month, director Jon Turteltaub and the cast reunited for an interview with The Independent and revealed their battle against Disney over the film’s Jamaican accents.
Loosely based on the debut of the Jamaican national bobsleigh team at the 1988 Winter Olympics, the film got its start outside of Disney with a script that was full of “drugs, racism and the characters were getting laid a lot,” cast member Rawle D.
Lewis recalled. “I saw it morph into the movie that it is now,” he added. “It was something that had never been told before – Jamaicans in tights?
People were like, ‘How’s this going to go under the Disney umbrella?’” Walt Disney Studios executives allegedly tussled with Turteltaub over the cast’s accent work. “They wanted me to sound like a black Aladdin,” said Just Leon. “They wanted a Disney version.
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