Wish: Is Asha a Disney princess?
DisneyAsha is the latest Disney heroine to grace the big screen in new film Wish, but is she actually a princess? Here’s everything you need to know.
From Snow White to Elsa and Anna, Disney has had a pretty epic history of incredible princesses. The latest female heroine to join the fleet is Asha (Ariana DeBose), the leading star of Wish.
The film’s synopsis reads “Young Asha makes a wish so powerful that it’s answered by a cosmic force, a little ball of boundless energy called Star. With Star’s help, Asha must save her kingdom from King Magnifico and prove that when the will of one courageous human connects with the magic of the stars, wondrous things can happen.”
With Asha intent on saving the day for the people of Rosas, is she actually a Disney princess? Here’s what we know.
Is Asha a princess in Disney’s Wish?
No, technically Wish’s Asha isn’t a Disney princess.
The movie shows that Asha is just a regular girl from the kingdom of Rosas, intent on becoming an apprentice to King Magnifico (Chris Pine). At best, this would make her a Royal intern rather than royalty itself.
In the design process, Asha was supposedly destined to be a princess, but this changed during development. Director Chris Buck confirmed this during a recent interview with Animation Scoop.
“A lot of people assume when they see the trailer that she’s a Disney princess. And sometimes that comes with some things that they expect of a certain character,” Buck commented.
Interestingly, the key cast in Wish feels the same way about Asha.
Speaking to Digital Spy, Ariana DeBose stated “She doesn’t make a wish for herself — she makes a wish for everyone else, for everyone around her, for the community. She’s a helper in a different way. We’ve had Disney princesses, we’ve had Disney heroines, and now we have Asha, who does what fairy godmothers do.
“They don’t necessarily hand us anything, they don’t necessarily tell us how to do it or how to accomplish a task. They help, and that’s what Asha is doing. So I think that within the legacy of Disney characters, in that way she’s very different.”
However, that doesn’t mean Asha has to be royalty in order to qualify as a Disney princess. Characters such as Mulan, Wendy Darling, Esmerelda, Megara, and Tinkerbell have all been classed as such without having any actual royal connections.
Wish is in theaters now. Check out other hubs below:
