Disney Princess or Superhero? Stephanie Beatriz Was Literally In Labor When She Recorded 'Waiting On A Miracle' For 'Encanto'
We all knew Stephanie Beatriz is a tough lady - she couldn't not be. Even if her role as Rosa Diaz in Brooklyn Nine-Nine wasn't based on her as a person, you can't play that kind of tough without having a similar strength at your core. Still, we had no idea how tough she really was.
Beatriz recently starred as the voice of lead character Mirabel Madrigal from Disney's biggest movie of 2022, Encanto. Mirabel is one of the youngest in a family of people with amazing magical gifts that allow them to do things like shapeshift and speak to animals - but Mirabel herself doesn't have a gift.
When Beatriz was recording Mirabel's first song, "Waiting on a Miracle" which laments this very issue, she got a chance to prove exactly how tough she really is: The actress recorded the entire thing while she was in labor with her first child.
"I didn't want to tell anybody at Disney because I didn't want anyone to freak out," Beatriz recalls, "but I was already having some contractions when we were scheduled to record that day. I was like 'Well, fingers crossed I finish the song before [the baby] comes!'"
Beatriz finished recording the song with no issues, and gave birth the very next day.
Director Byron Howard didn't find out about this until now - he laughed when he found out.
"We knew she was very, very, very, very ready to have that baby. But she did not tell us she was almost, almost ready."
According to Variety, "songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda liked to joke that she was singing "Waiting on a Miracle" while waiting for her personal miracle."
Talk about tough - it can't be easy to sing while you're having literal contractions.
You can watch Encanto and hear this "miracle" performance now on Disney+. The full interview, which also contains commentary from the stars of other animated films like Luca and Raya and the Last Dragon, can be found here.
