Hannah Simone voices the role of Mira’s friend Pinky in the Disney Channel series Mira, Royal Detective. In the Sept. 25 episode, Mira enlists Pinky, the goat expert, to help find Dhruv’s pet goat. In the episode, Hannah sings the adorable song “If I Were A Goat.” Hannah talked to HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY about taking on a song and singing for the first time on TV.
“There’s a reason why Cece never sang on New Girl [laughs],” Hannah said. “I was surrounded by an incredible professional who knew was she was doing. But that’s also the joy I think of taking on characters and letting their personality shine through. You get to learn things about yourself and do things that you would never do.” Initially, she wasn’t so sure about singing, but then thought about how “Pinky would deal with this song.”
In the end, Hannah went “full, goat-loving Pinky in this song, and I surprised myself. It actually sounds pretty good. I actually had a lot of fun doing it. That was an exciting moment for me to learn something about myself. I’m grateful for Pinky. She gave me that opportunity.”
Mira, Royal Detective is a groundbreaking series for Disney and television in general. The show features a completely South Asian cast. To be a part of a show like this is something Hannah cherishes.
“It’s been so exciting, to be honest with you,” Hannah continued. “My dream has always been to do animation because I love me a Disney cartoon. When they bought this project me, it was after New Girl. They were like, it’s got the South Asian lead character named Mira, who is going to be voiced by a young girl, and we’re going to surround her with an all-star South Asian cast. I don’t think I even let them finish their pitch to me. I was like, I’m in. I didn’t hear what character. I didn’t hear often it would be featured. It didn’t matter. I was so excited to be part of an animated Disney series, and one that was so incredibly important in the world of representation.”
Hannah noted that she’s enjoying watching the landscape change when it comes to South Asian representation on TV. The actress played Cece Parekh on the long-running series New Girl, which celebrated Cece’s South Asian culture. “Liz Meriwether cast me in that show, and I’ve told her so many times since then how important what she did was to help shift how people see South Asians in mainstream American culture,” Hannah told HollywoodLife. “I feel like with Mindy [Kaling] and with Priyanka [Chopra], we’ve seen South Asian women being able to have these incredible roles before New Girl and after New Girl. Now you have Disney creating a show with a South Asian female lead with a full South Asian cast. That’s what makes me feel so great is to watch the shift of the landscape where everybody is in this mainstream and it’s accepted and no one even bats an eye. It’s exciting.”