Aslan Is a Male Lion. So Why Is Meryl Streep Voicing Him in Greta Gerwig’s Narnia?

One of the biggest rumors hanging over Greta Gerwig’s Narnia movie is officially no longer a rumor: Meryl Streep is Aslan. The speculation had been floating around for more than a year. Netflix put Streep on the cast list in May without saying who she’d play. Now Gerwig has confirmed it to Empire for the magazine’s November cover story, which also gives us our first look at the lion himself. Here’s the lion. A few things immediately stand out. Aslan has one blue eye and one brown, plus a red stripe down his face. Both, Empire reports, are nods to David Bowie, one of Gerwig’s key reference points for a movie being billed as a “rock ’n’ roll” take on Narnia. And Empire still refers to Aslan as “he,” which settles one part of the yearlong rumor. Gerwig hasn’t turned Aslan into a lioness. She’s kept him male and cast Meryl Streep to voice him. Gerwig’s explanation gets very specific about what she wanted from Aslan. It does not address why she chose a woman for a male character. “I wanted someone who was profound but not pretentious, who had gravitas but not morose self-seriousness. Someone who could communicate depth and pathos as well as joy and delight,” she told Empire. “I wanted someone who was older than 70, so there was a wisdom of experience, but who also had the capacity of fresh wonder, like a child. And also to be one of the greatest actors to ever do it. That list is not a long one.” Nobody’s arguing with Streep’s résumé. The question is the character. Lewis wrote Aslan as Christ in Narnia. In The Magician’s Nephew, he sings the world into existence. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he sacrifices himself and comes back to life. And across the major screen adaptations that came before Gerwig’s, Aslan has always had a male voice. Liam Neeson voiced him in all three Disney and Fox films. Streep will be the first woman to voice Aslan in a major screen adaptation. Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew is Netflix’s first Narnia film since the company acquired the rights to the series in 2018, and it’s the first screen adaptation of Lewis’ origin story. It follows Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer, two London kids who stumble into other worlds, witness the creation of Narnia and encounter Jadis, the woman who will become the White Witch. Newcomers David McKenna and Beatrice Campbell play Digory and Polly, with Daniel Craig as Uncle Andrew and Emma Mackey as Jadis. The larger cast includes Carey Mulligan, Ciarán Hinds, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Denise Gough and Susan Wokoma. Gerwig has also moved the London portion of Lewis’ story from the turn of the 20th century to the 1950s. The film opens wide in theaters Feb. 12, 2027, after IMAX previews beginning Feb. 10, then lands on Netflix April 2. For now, we have a Bowie-inspired Aslan with Meryl Streep on the mic. February should be interesting.